Do you love your spouse more than they love you? I’ve long suspected I love Wayne more than he loves me, but I’d never quite realized that could truly be a possibility until I watched an episode of Malcolm in the Middle.
“Say what? Malcolm in the Middle? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” you may be asking.
I’m not sure which episode it was. It might have been the one where Hal had a female boss who was coming on to him. Devoted to his wife Lois, he confided to her what was happening. I want to say some incentive depended on him being sweet back to the boss. Lois told him to do whatever was needed to get that raise, promotion, or whatever it was.
I may have the scenario all wrong that led up to the discussion they had, but somehow they got to talking about loving each other. Lois did something, I want to say felt bad she didn’t get jealous about the boss situation or ignored Hal or took him for granted in some way, but he forgave her. But she was upset that it was so obvious that he loved her more than she did him and why didn’t that bother him?
He explained that of course he loved her more than she loved him. Their relationship couldn’t work if she loved him as much as he loved her…they’d never leave the bedroom!
Since the show is a comedy they had to make light of the situation, but there was a lot of truth in their revelation. And I realized in my own situation that was definitely true as well.
Wayne loves me, I have no doubt about that. He wouldn’t finance me staying home to write, go to ghost hunting classes with me, or surprise me with unexpected gifts if he didn’t.
But of the two of us who suffers from the all-consuming, consistently put their spouse’s needs and wants ahead of their own, think about them all the time, forever anticipate ways to make their life easier and do them without a second thought?
That’s me. Hands down.
And it doesn’t bother me. It makes perfect sense. One of us has to love the other more than the other or we’d be so consumed with our relationship we’d never get anything done. Someone has to bring home the bacon after all.
And the other has to know how to cook it up just right (not too crispy in Wayne’s case), how he likes his eggs (scrambled), what kind of jam he likes on the toast (strawberry or raspberry, sometimes blackberry)…et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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