So I had an interesting thought about Amy Sutherland's What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage. Isn't the subtext that by the husband increasing his spousal deafness and leaving his smelly bike shorts all over the place, didn't he train Amy to be less nagging and find better ways of getting what she wants? In a strange way, her husband trained her to become a better trainer, right?

That's, of course, a little tongue-in-cheek, because it's not guaranteed that Amy would've innovated. And it's not like her husband set out in his mind to incrementally reward her ability to train him. (Or did he?)