Feel The Love, You Mean Ol’ Hag

The Evil Overlord (my wife and co-driver) and I have been noticing an awful lot of love going around online. Social networks are teeming with couples professing their undying love for each other. They’re usually followed by the obligatory “MUAH,” which Google informs me, is the sound of a kiss. I guess I just don’t make enough kissing noises in my daily life to have recognized that.

To these people, I say good for you. I also say, “get a room.” I do so with a 🙂 Seriously, I’m glad that there’s love in the world. I’m happy that there are people who MUAH at each other, even if it does make me throw up in my mouth a little bit. I do hope it’s genuine though. I truly hope their home lives reflect their real life. I’m sure many do. On the other hand, The Evil Overlord and I know some couples who are miserable in real life, but you’d never know it from their online love-fest.

And then there are those who get offended when I take a verbal jab at The Evil Overlord. It happens all the time on my blog and on Twitter. My mother, whom I know will read this at some point (Hi Mom!) is one of those people. I believe that after our marriage of nearly 17 years, she now understands and accepts the way things are. The part that disturbs most folks, including my mom, is the language we use, or perhaps the language that we don’t use. For one, I don’t tell The Evil Overlord that I love her everyday, or even every week. She returns the favor.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. One thing I truly love about The Evil Overlord is that she can’t stand Oprah. She thinks all this self-love, build up your self-esteem stuff, is highly overrated. Tack on the fact that she thinks flowers and cards are pretty much a waste of money, and you’ve got yourself a keeper. Maybe all this Oprah mojo is fine for those women who have some deep, dark past that has left them with self-esteem issues, but not everyone needs a cheerleader pushing woman-power on them. Fortunately for me, confidence is not a problem The Evil Overlord faces.

Many wives need to hear the words “I love you” numerous times a day. They constantly need their husbands to reassure them that they look good too. The Evil Overlord, on the other hand, doesn’t need or want this. She knows when she looks good and when she doesn’t. Sure, she’ll ask my opinion on an outfit now and then, but she usually ignores me and wears the one she thinks looks better anyway. Good choice, as my sense of fashion is pretty atrocious.

Now for this language stuff. Here’s where we really get to some people. We’ve got A LOT of sarcasm in our relationship. Throw in a few insults and some name-calling and you’ve pretty much got the picture. For example:

• She’ll say something like, “Hey lazy-ass. Why don’t you make yourself useful for a change and fix the shower faucet.” I’ll respond with a loving, “Don’t tell me what to do, woman. Don’t you know your place by now?” She’ll walk away threatening my life as I’m gathering the tools.
• When I’m sitting on my can watching TV, I’ll yell, “Hey wench! Serve me my food.” She’ll holler back telling me where I can put said food. Two minutes later, I’m looking at my old Transformers TV tray with a heaping plate of vittles.
• When I get up in the middle of my sleep to back into a dock or put fuel in the truck, I’ll say, “Good Lord woman, you’re totally worthless.” With a smug look, she replies, “Get out there and do your manly duty and quit your whinin’.”
• When she tells me she wants to buy a MacBook, I tell her that only an idiot would pay that much for a computer. She mumbled something like, “I’ll get it if I want it. That’ll teach you to mess with me.” Instead, she refrains from buying one. When I finally catch the Mac bug, she secretly orders ME a top-the-line MacBook Pro for Christmas. She doesn’t get hers for another year-and-a-half.
• When she asks me to quit playing Guitar Hero: Metallica to drive 15 miles into town to get her “the ones with the wings,” I say, “Man, I really hate your guts.” I hear a mumbled “You love me,” as I’m walking out the door with a grin. “No, I really don’t” is the last thing she hears as the door closes. I know she’s grinning too.

The fact is that we don’t feel the need to say “I love you” all the time. We’ve never had a deep, heart-to-heart, tear-inducing conversation about this, but we both know we’re loved by the actions that the other takes. As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.” If I felt that I had to hear it every day, I wouldn’t consider myself to be very confident about the fact. Same with her. Granted, our actions don’t always reflect an ooey-gooey feeling of love. We are married after all.

As for the name-calling, well, I call her The Evil Overlord because she can be as mean as a newly-castrated bull when she wakes up. When we’re home and she’s requested that someone wake her up at a certain time, it turns into a session of, “I’m not doing it; you do it.” Luckily, I’m bigger than my nephews. Out on the road, it’s all on me. Although you can sometimes hear me pleading for help on Twitter.

When she calls me a dumb-ass, well, I know that she’s only implying that I can sometimes act like a childish, brainless turd-flinger. Sometimes names are given for a reason, ya know. Seriously though. I’ve never flung even one, single turd in my life. That’s not any thing my youngest nephew can claim.

So why are so many people hung up on the words, “I love you?” Too many times I’ve heard couples exchange “I love you’s” as one of them walks out the door or hangs up the phone. It doesn’t seem to mean that much to either of them. I’m sure you’ve heard it too. Maybe that’s you. Maybe without you realizing it, it’s even become your version of “See you later.” Gee, that means a lot.

One thing is for sure about my relationship with The Evil Overlord. When one of us says the magic words, it means something, and that’s largely because we don’t say it every day. The words tend to show up at the oddest moments too, catching the person completely off guard. This turns out to be an added benefit because, not only have you told them that you love them, but considering the surprising nature of the situation, you have to explain yourself to them. More examples:

• I might hear the words after I crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to walk her into a dark rest area. When I look at her suspiciously, she’ll respond seriously, “Most men wouldn’t do this.” Whether that’s true or not, I don’t really care. It makes me feel good. Oddly enough, I don’t get the same treatment when I wake up and start whining about freezing my butt off on the way into the rest area.
• The Evil Overlord might get surprised with it as we’re gathered around the Playstation 3 with our nephews; all of us screaming trash-talk at the video game. With her hair up in a bun and no make-up on, she laughs and looks at me like I’m crazy. I’ll reminder her that most wives don’t like for their men to play video games and that I’m lucky to have one who actually joins in the fun. I mean, c’mon guys. What better time to tell your wife that you love her than when you’ve just splattered the walls with some demon bosses guts.

Now please don’t get me wrong here. I would never try to tell you how you should interact with your spouse. You do what’s right for you. Just don’t go hatin’ on me and my heartless wench.

*So what do you think about all online lovefests going on? Or tell us all about your warped relationship with your partner. We can do without the graphic details though. 😀 Tell us all about it by leaving a comment. And be sure to pass this post along if you enjoyed it. Thanks.*

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