My Husband

I want to clarify something about my last post. My husband (Coralius) is not wonderful because he is taking on himself a domestic burden of mine. He is trying to take care of me, to help me take care of myself. He is wonderful because he loves me. Because I love him. Because no one else will ever understand me the way he does (albeit he says HE doesn't understand me sometimes). Because we share a mutual respect. Because of a million different things that I could never completely list or explain. Because of a thousand things I'm not sure I understand myself.

(Yes, yes I am an English teacher, and I have written mostly in sentence fragments. It is a writing style. Stream of consciousness - look it up.)

His post, I Don’t Have the Words, talks about me, him, us, and emotion itself. It is exactly how I feel about him as well. I don't think I could have ever said it better. Yes, I know I can be frustrating, although it bothers me that I am. And, yes, he can be a jerk sometimes, although he hates it too. But, to me that just makes our relationship that much better, stronger. One may ask, "Huh?"

A. It means we are honest with each other. When people are truly honest with one another, not all things that are said are full of sunshine and butterflies.

B. It means that we love one another enough to lash out at each other, even when it is unfair. I know that when Coralius gripes at me either 1 - I have done something that I need to fix, or at least work on not doing again, or 2 - he is frustrated with work, tired, sick, or something of that nature and he knows I love him enough to let it go. Face it, we only really ever lash out unfairly at the people we love. They will always forgive us. I do the same thing to him.

C. It means we respect each other. We respect one another enough to be honest about our opinions even when they differ. (This is different than the honesty listed above. You see, one can always be honest with others and not have respect for them or from them. Respect, in my book any way, requires a certain level of honesty.) We listen to one another, even when we disagree. We are not only husband and wife, we are the best of friends.

Couples who never fight or disagree bother me. (And, they do exist.) Do they lack respect for one another? Why aren't they more honest with each other, even if they can't be honest with other people? If that is the case, what is their relationship based on? How long can it last? Are they so alike that they don't disagree on anything? Would that not be so totally boring? Coralius and I do agree on most important topics, but we do disagree occassionally. Of all the adjectives I could use to describe our relationship, boring would not be one of them. When I was a teen, somewhere the idea was planted in my head that compatible people didn't fight. I hope that whoever gave me that idea has learned better since then for his/her own sake.