How to debate with one’s wife

Even if I can debate with the devil himself, I cannot debate with my wife.  She has, namely, only one syllogism, or rather none at all…The consequence of this is that all my skill in debating becomes a luxury item for which there is no demand at all in my domestic life.  If I, the experienced dialectician, fairly well exemplify this course of justice, which according to the poet’s dictum is so very long, my wife is like the royal Danish chancery, kurz and bündig [short and to the point], except that she is very different from that august body in being very lovable.

That is again Kierkegaard, from Prefaces.