Hate and love, I believe, are the same emotion. These occasional moments of discomfort tell me that she still cares about me. I know this because she’s not afraid to get angry with me when I deserve it, she easily and vocally speaks her mind and, at times, she’s not afraid to hate me. Yet she loves me, at least most of the time. Too often, I take our relationship, our marriage, for granted. I can be obstinate, opinionated and self-centered. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the easiest guy to live with, let alone to love. I’ve been there before.įor some reason, my wife has hung in there with me - for better or worse - for 21 years now. If we dwell upon my lack of consideration, my frugality and, quite frankly, my practicality, I know that things could be tense between my wife and I for a long time. (Good thing I didn’t follow that line of thinking.) At the time I thought about paying him for half of the bouquet, kind of like a Valentine’s gift from both of us, but I thought that might be a little too tacky. On the first of January, hearts and cupid figurines quickly replace Santa Claus and the baby Jesus in every major retail outlet.Įven on the day before Valentine’s Day, my father-in-law presented a bouquet of flowers for my wife that he had purchased at Walmart. It isn’t that I didn’t know that Valentine’s Day was near. The air is tense, she goes silent and I know that I’m in the doghouse. I try to rationalize the situation: It’s just another commercial holiday, there’s nothing practical about it, and, “Oh gee, you really shouldn’t have.” These are the times in every marriage when your heart suddenly fills your throat with palpitations of fear and regret. “Ah, happy Valentine’s Day, honey," I said, nearly choking on my words.
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