Honey, How Much Do You Love Me? – 31/1/11

Honey, How much do you love me? I have learned that this question is not to be taken literally and must be answered with extreme caution. I have discovered, through experience,  that the appropriate answer is "that depends". "That depends" gives you the ability to duck out of the impending request that would typically follow the loving, tender response of a wife who was not quite as prepared as I am.

Tonight my superhero came trudging up the stairs, it is late, I am in bed with my computer. He stands in the doorway, smiles and instantly I know the question is coming...  "Honey, how much do you love me?" I immediately reply with "that depends" and add a disclaimer that if it requires me to go downstairs, I certainly do not love him enough tonight. He continues to smile at me in an odd, manipulative manner as my mind races to figure out what he is going to ask me, before he asks. I like to be prepared so I can figure out my line of defense. I immediately remember that he has court in the morning and that a t-shirt and jeans will just not cut it. I look at him and say "you need a shirt ironed". This obviously was not the correct line of defense as he says "thank you", pulls out the ironing board, plugs in the iron and hops into bed. Now, working with children, you would think I would know that to stop a behavior, you should not reinforce it but I jump out of bed and iron his damn shirt. I loath ironing, have always avoided it. I actually became a pro at it when my superhero was in recruit training. After his first day he came home and informed me that his shirts and pants had to have perfect creases in order to pass inspection. It was increasingly painful watching him try to put perfect creases into his uniform and I immediately took over. That is what caring wives do right?  Again, you would think I would have thought about reinforcing behavior but after that day, he never again ironed his own uniform. I am sure somewhere in the first few days of training the words "How much do you love me?" came out of his mouth.

So now as I reflect, I have realized that my line of defense is not actually that good and I need to reevaluate how I follow through. I will however continue to reply, "that depends", at least it gives me a chance to figure out how to get out of the impending request.