I have been known to complain to my girlfriends in great detail about Paul. He doesn’t clean enough, and when he does clean he does such a crappy job I suspect him of being deliberately incompetent in the hopes that I’ll say “PLEASE don’t help.” He can be inconsiderate, grabbing my towel when he forgot to get a fresh one for himself, and then leaving mine wet on the floor next to the toilet. He can appear to listen to me for ten minutes or so, when actually he is doing a physics problem in his head and hasn’t heard a single word. He’ll put a huge load of laundry on the low, hot cycle, because he doesn’t think to set the cycle, and then he’ll leave it in the dryer to get cold and crinkled–and moldy, because he didn’t set the cycle for a large load. He’ll step over cat barf to let me find it later. Spiders? My job.

But in many, many ways he SAVES us, he saves our family. He comes home from work in a good mood, and he plays actively with the children. He doesn’t expect to have time to relax right away, and he knows he has only a short time per day with the kids and so he takes all of it, waiting to do his own things until after the kids are in bed. When I’m falling apart, he makes a funny remark that puts everything back in perspective. He never says “Oh, you must be PMSing.” When I’m cranky, he doesn’t escalate it by cranking back at me; in fact, he acts extra affectionate, like he thinks I’m being cute when I am actually being a total bitch. He doesn’t give me a hard time about the messiness of the house. He doesn’t go out partying with his friends. He doesn’t spend all our money, leaving me wondering how we’re going to pay the bills.

Things like “doing a good job cleaning the toilet” pale in comparison. (Though I still would really, really like it if he could do a good job cleaning the toilet. I mean, it’s not rocket science.)