That's... strangely sweet and endearing. It reminds me a bit of my own marriage. I was in charge of an important, high-visibility project at work with a ridiculously aggressive deadline. Well long story short, we didn't deliver and I ended up being demoted.

Although it was devastating at the time, my wife was incredibly supportive, patient with me as I got through a brief period of drinking and sadness, and eventually we got to the point where we could joke about it together.

But then she started to make these goodhearted ribs at my expense in front of our friends and family. And soon, even colleagues and acquaintances. And sometimes when we have a real fight, she'll get right to the edge of throwing that particular failure in my face, but so far she's held back.

One of the more hurtful aspects about getting demoted was that they replaced me with a good friend of mine, who started at the company around the same time as me and rose through the ranks with me. Lately he's been coming by our house more often to visit me, probably because he knows I'm still a bit depressed. Sometimes he'll even make it there before I do when I work late, but luckily my wife works from home so she can let him in.