You’re lounging on the couch, still sporting the blanket under which you napped.

“Now that’s a hot husband – one who’s folding laundry!”

You laugh when I say it. I laugh too, but I mean it.

I don’t think you realize just how hot it is when you wash dishes, scrub down the bathrooms, help the kids clean up their perpetually-disastrous rooms, run the vacuum, and clear everything out of the way when you cut your hair so I don’t find bits of hair in my toothbrush.

Not every man will do that. I know this. But you do.

You know what your willingness to dive into the work with me says to me? It says that you and me? We’re in this together. We’ve got each other’s back, in spite of our quirks, flaws, and mistakes.

When I fail to balance the check book correctly and we run out of money five days after pay-day, you rolled up your sleeves instead of getting angry and bitter, and together we figured out how to get through.

When you leave your clean laundry in [neat…ish] piles on the floor for days on end, I smile and remember how my mom always says, “Even ‘cleanies’ have a place where they’re messy.” (Then I give serious eyes to my clothes pile, and my book piles, and my orphan-socks pile, and my grab-everything-off-the-counter-before-company-comes-over piles, and I remember that I have no room to criticize.)

You show me an episode of Wayne’s World and let me in on your secret – all your favorite lines come from those old Saturday Night Live episodes. I relish this glimpse into what makes you you. (Time for a little quid pro quo, I believe. Prepare yourself — we must watch Anne of Green Gables and Little Women next.)

Even though I give you a hard time about your little quirks, like insisting on washing the van before we take a road trip or talking about cutting your hair for days (sometimes weeks) before you actually do it or refusing to even try almond milk because “you can’t milk an almond,” I love those things about you, too. I love how you are able to get me to laugh, chill out when I’m getting too intense, and not take life so seriously.  I’m quite certain that your easy-going-ness is prolonging the life of this type-A woman.

I had no idea how much I’d love the ordinary little things about you. I’m the lucky one.

 ***

Each Monday, Scott and I join Amber and Seth in a weekly series we’re calling “Marriage Letters.” We hope you’re encouraged in your own relationships by these notes, and we hope you’ll consider joining us some week. If you wrote this week, link up below! Read Scott’s letter here.