Liking your spouse is just as important as loving them

my husband died. That I’m not even 50 years old, and here I am a widow.

I think of my daughter, who is so different from the 13-yearold she was when her daddy died. She had braces. Purple streaks in her hair. She smiled and laughed easily.

I think how I was different then, too, three years ago. Worried and anxious, feeling inadequate as a nurse about Joel’s health – he had multiple sclerosis.

Joel and I started out as friends, becoming romantic years later when the timing was finally right. I knew I would love this man forever, though, when early into our friendship he told me this joke:

“Where do cantaloupes and honeydew go during the summer?

“John Cougar Mellencamp.”

For some reason, this cracked me up. It was the late 1980s, and the world still mostly thought of him as rocker John Cougar. The Mellencamp name alone was funny.

This joke still makes me smile when I think of it, and I can picture exactly where we were when Joel said it – in the mail room of the record label we both worked for.

I was sitting on the counter, my legs swinging beneath me. He laughed at the punch line, too, his face full and happy, a twinkle in his green eyes.

I was waiting in line for a movie recently, when I saw an older couple in front of me. The wife was angry because the husband didn’t buy the tickets online like she had asked him to. He was certain the movie was not going to sell out.

Even if it did, he said, there was another movie they wanted to see, starting around the same time.

The wife wasn’t having it. She was holding on to her anger and resentment over the husband not doing things her way. He seemed all too used to it, even told her to be quiet and rolled his eyes. She rolled hers. They were together, but apart.

I notice things like this all the time. When I am around people who have been married for years, it doesn’t seem like they enjoy each other’s company too much. There seems to be a shortness, an annoyance with every exchange.

I’ve been in cars with friends, couples who argue over which lane to drive in. I’ve had dinner at friends’ homes, and they argue over which wine glasses to use. It doesn’t mean there isn’t love, but I wonder if there’s any like left.

I went with my daughter to a college fair a few weeks ago. School events are difficult for me. I want my husband there with us, to be a sounding board, to weigh in. But as I looked around the room, I realised that if Joel were there with us, I probably would have been mad or annoyed that he wouldn’t be quite sure what we were doing there. But if he had decided to stay home that morning, I’d also be mad and annoyed by his absence.

Even in death, the poor guy can’t win!