All wives do it.  We talk behind their backs.  We have to.  We can’t tell them how imperfect they are.  They wouldn’t believe us if we did.  So we huddle up and talk about them, and compare notes.  We laugh at their similarities, and gasp at their total lack of sensitivity to our needs.  We act like total bitches, because we would die if they did this to us (newsflash…they do) but we rake them over the coals. 

I used to think all men were alike.  I totally believed that God had made one kind and slapped them in different shapes with different faces.  It made sense.  Adam was made in his image, and everyone else descended from Adam…you do the math.  I figured Adam was a real jerk.  I never really understood why Eve caught all the crap on the whole apple deal either.  I know she ate of the forbidden fruit, but so did Adam.  He could have said no.  No one was holding a gun to his head.  There weren’t even any guns to be held!  Yes, he had a naked woman in front of him, and most men don’t really think too clearly in those situations, but still he was the one who took the bite.  He should shoulder some of the responsibility.  But what did he do when God asked him why he was hiding? “Woman ate of the apple”.  What a skeez.  He went on to say he took a bite too, but he had to rat Eve out first, and this is why we talk about them.  They don’t admit when they are wrong, and they never take the blame.

We love them.  We truly do.  It’s because we love them that we feel we have earned the right to talk about them.  I do mean earned.  It’s hard work to be with the same man day in and day out.  They will tell you that it is easy, but that is because they are with a woman.  Many has been the day that I have wished I had a wife.  If someone else would just do the laundry and the dishes and the cooking and run the errands so that I could elect to do something else, I might be in a better mood at the end of the day.  When I fall asleep on the couch watching television, he thinks it is so precious.  It’s not precious!  It’s exhaustion!! 

My very favorite bone to pick with my husband though (and it’s not an argument it’s just a peeve) is when he tries to parent me.  My husband is almost twelve years my junior.  Yet, he is very much more elderly than I am in many, many ways.  He is more mobile, but I have more zest for life.  That’s not exactly right.  How should I put this…I would be much more likely to embarrass you in public.  Yup, that’s about it, and Jr. feels it is his responsibility to correct this error in my nature.  It ain’t gonna happen.  He sometimes tells me that I need to lower my voice. (UGH!!)  But my favorite, by favorite I mean the thing that makes me want to reach across the table, or room, or car, or whatever, and deliver a solid blow to the top of his skull that will definitely change the look on his face to something more likely to be seen in a Dick Tracy cartoon, is when he raises his eyebrows at me in a totally dad face.  Yeah, that’ll probably work.  I didn’t mind my parents well.  I adored my grandmother who lived with us and was my primary caregiver until I was eight, but I didn’t mind her.  I minded in school (as far as they knew).  As he well knows I only semi-sorta followed the rules in college.  I’m probably not gonna start towing the line now.  Just stop.  Don’t waste your time.  Don’t strain your eyebrows.  Don’t strain your milk.

That’s the thing.  We don’t change.  We marry the people we love, because they are who they are.  I married the goofball I married because he compliments my nutty behavior.  He knows he can’t rein me in.  He thinks it’s funny that I am such an unpredictable little imp. I think he is amazing because he is a romantic dreamer who optimistically thinks everything will work out.  We won’t change.  We will always work, because we aren’t surprised when we act the way we do.  We only worry when we don’t act the way we should.  He knows I talk about him.  He denies that he acts the way he does.  He insists that I over sell his behavior.  Those who know him, know better.  We each think the other is funny.  Listen up those of you looking for romance…funny is better (it will last longer!)  We always have fun together.  He is a slob.  He cannot meet a deadline.  He has his days and nights mixed up.  He doesn’t like my cooking.  He won’t shave.  He is very tall, but tip toes everywhere he goes.  He is a golfaholic.  He is never wrong and he is all mine.  In the last sixteen years plus we haven’t had a day that we didn’t say how much we love one another.  Just don’t ask us why.

Love is weird.  You never know who you will end up with or why.  Be glad when it works.  Don’t worry about talking behind their backs.  That is how we create our sisterhood.  They do it too.  They have a brotherhood (primary example: my son has taught my grandson when asked what all the ladies say, to respond “nag, nag, nag”).  I like to think they aren’t as kind as we are, but who knows.  I’m sure they think we aren’t as kind as they are, but we know we love them…warts and all.