Reacting to my aching back and the fact I announced I was about to carry some loads of laundry to the basement, the conversation went like this:
Me: I’m gonna take down some laundry in a little while.
Devoted Spouse: No, you’re not.
Me: Oh, yeah, I am.
Devoted Spouse: No! You can’t carry down; you can’t carry up…but…you can karaoke.
Seriously, this is my life…sigh…
Delaney tagged me with this one – I need to blog about how I love my hubs (or Devoted Spouse as I refer to him). I agree with her that it’s also a case of “why” not just “how”. I thought this would be pretty simple, but it isn’t because there is so much to consider. Love is a big four letter word. So please hang in there with me; this is a long posting.
It is obvious that I love him from the bottom of my cute little tootsies for the tremendous personal care he has given me over the past 9 long weeks of my whining and being generally pitiful during recovery from my shoulder injury. He has done things spouses shouldn’t have to do, but God love his heart for never complaining. We’ve spoken quite enough about this topic so I will address it no further.
Devoted Spouse literally marched into my life over 25 years ago when I was working at the Pentagon.. He was an Air Force Major who had just been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and he just strutted his perfectly tailored uniformed butt into my office like he was General Patton himself (no offense Devoted Spouse). I thought he was cute, but he never smiled and so I labeled him stoic. Little did I know he had a wicked sense of humor and the biggest heart in the world. One day he sat down across from my desk and told me one of the dirtiest (and funniest) jokes I had ever heard – he never cracked a smile – and I couldn’t contain myself – I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants. Then he smiled. For some reason that was the moment our fates were sealed – we simply became best friends. We were both swept off our feet and neither one of us ever stood a chance!
How do I love him? Well, I tell him constantly – in fact we have this rather sickeningly sweet little habit that when we are out to eat together whoever buys a meal thanks the other one for the meal and then quickly follows that with “I love you”. It became such a habit with me that one day I had lunch with one of my pastors (who kindly picked up the bill) and as we exited the restaurant I looked at him and said (automatically), “Thank you for my lunch, Scott, I love you.” I quickly explained my slight faux pas and where the automatic response came from and I think he realized then and there I was just a bit cracked in the head. Oh well. Back to Devoted Spouse.
My husband is a quiet man. He speaks when he has something to say. I, on the other hand, am often difficult to shut up. I’m loud, obnoxious, opinionated, and passionate about issues in which I believe. We make an interesting couple. I yammer away and he nods his head at all the right times. He spends his life doing whatever he possibly can to ensure that I am happy. It doesn’t matter what it is I need, he finds a way to provide it for me. I cannot recall a time the word “no” ever came out of his mouth. (Except maybe when I tried to feed him a dish that had eggs and mushrooms.)
I absolutely adore him. I know that he adores me too – it shows in his eyes. He also has a wicked sense of humor – the kind that quietly sneaks up on you and moments after he’s quietly said something witty you realize just how funny it was and you can’t help but smile, giggle, or laugh outrageously. This sense of humor sometimes is difficult to contend with when we are in church.
Devoted Spouse is the most generous person I have ever known. In fact I must be careful in letting known something I would like, because if he gets wind of it, I receive it, whether or not we can afford it. Case in point – we once were on the way to the grocery store to buy some frozen broccoli for a casserole I needed to make to take to a party. We drove by a car dealership and I said out loud, “Oh, look at that adorable little red pickup truck.” He turned the car into the lot and we ended up coming home with the most expensive box of frozen broccoli ever made.
For over 25 years now we have spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with each other (for the most part) with the exception of some of his Active Duty time when he was away. When he retired I also went to work at his new company and he ended up being my manager. It was wonderful – and we spent the better part of 10 or 12 years doing that. Now we are both retired (okay, he retired, I just quit) and we are still constantly together. I tell people we are attached at the hip. I can’t imagine life any other way.
So how do I love him? I love him by doing the best I can to make him happy, by respecting his opinions, his feelings and his space and by trying not to be too disrespectful to the (awful) music he enjoys or roll my eyes when he laughs at Larry the Cable Guy (ugh). I love him by encouraging him when he needs encouragement and by patting him on the back when he’s made me proud. And I love him most because he’s never once uttered the word “yes” when I asked him “Honey, does this make me look fat?”
Now Delaney tells me I must tag three others to tell their story so I’m tagging my girlfriends:
Stepping Thru
Smart Mouth Broad
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Devoted Spouse and I have been attached at the hip for over a quarter of a century. That’s alot of time to spend in the company of another person. Enough time so you know just about every little thing there is to know. I recently gained a bit more insight into why otherwise normal, loving, fun-to-be-with husbands can suddenly turn into annoying, irritating hunks of monkey butt.
It was a lovely Friday here in retiredville. Devoted Spouse was off for a morning of black powder gun shooting and I was looking forward to a morning of retail wanderlust. I topped off my shopping expedition with a trip to the local grocery. I pulled into the driveway and happily spotted Devoted Spouse’s little sports car in its appointed spot. Hallelujah – he could help carry in groceries.
Entering our kitchen, grocery bags in both arms, I noticed steam rising from a large pot of water boiling on the stove. My mind registered boiling water and connected that vision with the huge bag of freshly-picked string beans on the counter. How sweet; Devoted Spouse was going to get the beans started for dinner.
As I turned around to put the bags on the counter what I saw will be forever burned on my retinas. Spread out on my nice clean kitchen counters were assorted pieces of weaponry in various stages of cleaning. Guns and their little jigsaw-puzzley pieces were everywhere I wanted to put those grocery bags. As I parked the bags on the kitchen table I nodded toward the boiling water and asked Devoted Spouse if he was about to start cooking the beans. He gave an exasperated sigh and explained that he needed boiling water to clean his gun. He proceeded to give me a “gun” lesson. Apparently, black powder guns are different from regular bullet guns and their parts must be cleaned with boiling water.
I envisioned him picking up the gun with my good kitchen tongs and lowering it into my very expensive large Calphalon pot of boiling water and I about lost my religion. Devoted Spouse has lots of manspace in the house where he could clean weapons; there is a large basement, a large garage, and a large shed in the backyard. Yet there he was in my kitchen using my kitchen tools.
I took a deep breath and realized I was going to have to compromise. I know the kitchen actually belongs to both of us. Devoted Spouse continued to explain exactly how he was going to clean his weaponry. He had found a 9×12 glass baking dish in which he was going to lay the gun pieces and then pour boiling water over them. Then the gun pieces would be placed in another of my expensive pans and dried in the oven. That’s right, on top of everything else, he intended to dry the guns and accoutrements in the oven.
The epitome of monkey butt.
