I Love My Husband

As women, we gripe a lot about our husbands and grumble about how they didn’t put on laundry or didn’t wipe the counter when they “cleaned” the kitchen or left their boxers on the bathroom floor. They aren’t romantic enough, sensitive enough, don’t listen, don’t understand, don’t care and generally just make our lives more difficult.

All of the above is true about my husband every now and then. But every now and then he catches me off guard and really touches my heart. Today, it was with this picture:

He sent this to me at work about 10 minutes after I arrived. He and my daughter were going to run errands and he’d dressed her for the day. He even did her hair! Usually on his days off, she lives in jammies or sweats. I found myself smiling just thinking of him standing at her closet, staring at the clothes hanging in there, trying to discern what matched. As it turns out, he’s not really color blind after all!

My husband and I have had a generally rough week. Our daughter was sick Sunday and Monday with the stomach flu. Tuesday and Wednesday, we dealt with challenging behavior issues with our son and didn’t always see eye to eye on discipline tactics. There have been some heated discussions in our house – stemming from fatigue and stress. But last night, dinner was ready for me when I got home and after the kids were in bed, my husband and I had the opportunity to discuss things that have been bothering us, talk about some of our hopes and dreams that we mysteriously quit pursuing, and just generally cleared the air about things weighing on both our minds. There was no yelling, no silence, no extremes - just cuddling and calm, serious conversation. We went to bed with fewer knots in our stomach and a renewed energy for the rest of the week.

The wonderful thing about a marriage is that despite all of the ups and downs, it’s a partnership. Whether or not the boxers make it to the laundry room isn’t really important – the fact that he’s my husband and loves me as much as I love him is.