Vol. 73 - I Love My Wife. But Do I Still Like Her?

Hint: Yes. I do.

Recently, the head of a writing group I belong to sent a personal email to the entire collective.

One of our members was getting married and he thought it’d be a fun idea for anyone who has been in a long-term relationship and/or marriage to offer insight.

“What’s your best piece of advice,” it asked.

The replies soon flooded in with mentions of affection and compromise; of actively listening and paying attention to your partner’s needs; of supporting one another in the pursuit of their goals and to be open and honest when discussing finances.

As I scanned through the emails, I thought of my own relationship with Emily, now nearing its fifteenth year (!?), and wondered what the single most important reason might be behind the strength of our relationship.

I considered the idea of sacrifice, which my mother drilled into my sister and me all our lives with one of her trademark sayings: “Perfect love makes sacrifice easy.”

And yes, sacrifice has played a large role in my relationship with Emily. When I quit my Very Good Job to tour with my band full-time after we signed to a record label, she supported me (both emotionally and financially). In fact, forget support. She basically forced me to.

“If you don’t quit your job and go tour, I’m going to break up with you,” she said.

And just as she did for me, I think I did for her, when we had a months-old baby at home and Emily decided to go back to school for her masters degree at one of the most demanding public health programs in the country.

For those few years, I put my wants and needs behind her own in order to fully support her because I love Emily perfectly and like my ma said, “Perfect love makes sacrifice easy.”

But still, that wasn’t quite the notion I was after.

I thought of physicality and sex and how important a role those things play in a relationship as it stretches from months into years, years into decades. But that wasn’t it. Though it’s vitally important, how, when, and why we fuck is hardly the cornerstone of our relationship.

And then it hit me, just as Emily and I had a conversation about how, even though parenting is the hardest thing either of us have ever done, we’re thrilled that we get to do it together. And so I typed an email and added my piece of advice to the thread.

“It’s so much more important to like your partner than it is to love them.”

Sure, you probably love your long-term partner. It’s kind of essential.

But once attained, love is a whole lot easier to maintain than like. There are things in my life I love but don’t necessarily like that much anymore. Why? Because, even though they no longer do, at one point, those things played a vital and essential role in and to my life. And for that, I will always love them.

I love the old action figures scattered around my home, peeking out and reminding me that I was once a little boy, even though I don’t like playing with toys anymore. I love the idea of fettuccine Alfredo because it makes me think of my mother and the way she chopped parsley. But I can’t say I like fettuccine Alfredo much any more.

I love football because of the memories it evokes in me and what it parallels in life, even though I don’t enjoy watching the sport very much these days. There are people in my life that don’t really like as I get older, but will always love because of who they were and what they meant to me once.

In many ways, to love something is easy because love is more of an abstraction. But to continue to like something or someone over a protracted timeline requires a whole lot more work.

I like Emily. I like her a lot. She is my best friend. She’s my pal. She’s the only person I never tire of and the only one I want to see each and every single day of my life.

But just like sex, conversation, and finishing a fucking book, liking your partner is something that is often easily swept to the side once kids enter the picture.

As we sat on the precipice of having our first kid, I considered this idea. I wondered what things I might lose touch of as the lion’s share of my attention turned to my soon-to-be child. I figured those things I so dearly care about might be put on the backburner for a while; playing in bands, going to shows, riding my bike, reading.

I thought of more interpersonal relationships and how it might be a while before I could regularly hang out with friends and family again. And as I thought of those things, I knew that I would not, for an instant, regret missing out on a single one of them in favor of being a father because perfect love makes sacrifice easy.

But what about Emily? What about my buddy, my best friend? Would I still like her after years of sleepless nights, confusing emotions, and tantrums?

If anything, I thought it was essential to my role as a father, to the creation and fostering of a happy home, that I continue to like my kids’ mother.

And now that we’re as deep as we’re likely to ever be in the shitmess that is raising kids (a home with a five- and a two-year-old is a shitmess indeed), it requires more work than ever to maintain that level of liking her (and hoping she likes me), predominantly because we hang out with each other less than we ever have since the day we met (and that includes me leaving for six-week tours around the country). It requires communication and joy. It requires sex and laughter. It requires comfort and support.

Most of all, it requires an adherence to the thing that so attracted us to each other in the first place: the fact that we like our partner for exactly who he or she is, even if that may change over time. The fact that they’re still, somehow after fifteen years, the one person we want to hang out with each and every single day.

And that’s not something you can say about all of the people you love.