Elizabeth Barrett Browning once started off a sonnet with what has perhaps become a bit of a cliched saying:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Have you ever tried to count the ways you love your spouse? Once upon a blog I wrote about something Wayne did for me that showed me he loved me, and then Jade asked: But what do you do to show him? So I answered that with another blog.
While that was sort of counting the ways he loves me and I love him, lately my heart’s been waxing romantic about just how much Wayne loves me. It may be the season’s fault. (I always get more sappy and sentimental around this time of year.)
Or it may be because I’m finally starting to pull out of my shell shock from some of the events that have unfolded this year. I’m looking back and realizing, “Wow. He wouldn’t have done X or put up with Y if he didn’t truly love me madly, deeply, and forever.”
But it’s not even the big gestures he’s made this year. Recently I’ve spent some time regrouping and going back to basics that help center me. Basics I drifted away from (on accident), but am now happily and gratefully reacquainting myself with.
The biggest one of all is one I can’t believe I forgot to repeat to myself every day. For the past almost 10 years I rarely went a day without doing it, but sometime after I believe June I just plum didn’t. It’s the six sacred tenets of living a life of Simple Abundance: gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty, and joy.
It was when I went back to take stock of all I really do have to be grateful for this year that I started seeing the multitude of ways I know Wayne loves me. Here’s a brief sampling of some of the things I discovered:
- Because he says “I love you.” (And he doesn’t just say it when he responds to me saying it. He initiates it just as much.)
- He doesn’t mind my morning breath. (If I was a dragon, I wouldn’t need fire coming out of my mouth. My morning breath flames are invisible and toxic –yet Wayne has never once wrinkled his nose or turned his head away in disgust. And he has a good nose. Now that’s love!)
- He thinks my singing’s beautiful. (I couldn’t carry a tune in a suitcase, but he’ll turn down the radio and let my voice carry over whoever’s singing because he likes to hear me sing.)
- He calls just to say hi.
- He argues with me about getting to the doctor when I don’t want to go.
- He’s sensitive to my tummy troubles. (I have never been officially diagnosed with irritable bowel or anything, but there are times when I don’t dare leave the house after eating because I know I’m going to need a bathroom pronto when the urge hits. We’ve had too many emergency bathrooms stops so he knows when I say, “I’m feeling funny,” we just have to lay low for a bit. And he never complains about it.)
I have a lot of other weirdo flaws, but basically he loves me just the way I am (to borrow a line from Mr. Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary). And when I stop to really think about it, what a most excellent feeling it is!
Question to Readers
What kind of things let you know your spouse loves you?
Courtney Mroch writes about animals great and small in Pets and the harmony and strife that encompasses married life in Marriage. For a full listing of her articles click here.
Related Articles
How Well Do You Know Your Spouse? – A Quiz
Can You Answer These 15 Questions About Your Significant Other?