As Common as I Love Yous

“Someday I WILL murder you in your sleep.”

“Not if I get you first, you sonofabitch.”

Ah, the sounds of love. Isn’t it fun to watch different couples interact and relate to each other? You never know what’s just under the surface there, what’s underneath the side comment or the eye roll. Some couples are all over each other in public, and some barely acknowledge each other. My partner and I have what I think is an interesting relationship, wherein the statements above are as common as “I love yous,” (which are totally common in my house, you guys). My partner and I get each other. We have our inside jokes, and we make each other laugh every day. We do small kindnesses for each other throughout the day, we work hard, and we meet at night to kiss before we fall down to do it all over again.

We’re madly in love after a decade together, but we often joke about how our relationship might look if people could peek inside our home and see some of our exchanges. In fact, we have a recurring scene that we act out in frustration and fondness. It goes something like this:

Me: Joseph! I swear! If you do (X offense) ONE more time, I am going to set you on FIRE.

Joe: Shut up before I strangle you.

Me: I wish you were dead.

Joe: Oh, I’m dead inside. I’m dead inside.

It’s mostly just at home that we act this way, but sometimes our exuberance in carries over into public. Like, if we’re at Target and he wants to buy something, and gets all excited about what that thing would mean to our life, and all the ways we could use it. And I wait until he stops for a second and then I say NO, wickedly and with a smile on my face, because I know I’m the boss of the money. And then he grabs my shoulders quite dramatically (but not roughly) and says “Why are you always trying to kill my dreams?! Naysayer!”

My partner and I aren’t super lovey-dovey in public, though usually that has a lot to do with having kids—our hands are always being held or pushing something. But when we’re out alone, which, seriously, is only about five times a year at this point, we sometimes hold hands, or I loop my arm through his, because he has sweaty hands and we can’t hold hands for too long. And sometimes when he’s driving I put my hand on the back of his neck. We’re more about the everyday small things—I think when you’ve been together for a long time, and especially when you have kids, it gets that way. We don’t buy each other birthday or Christmas gifts, simply because we can’t afford it, and we don’t ever go out to dinner and to see a play. We don’t have lives that allow grand(ish) romantical pleasures, but we have our idiosyncratic, deadpan humor and our small and simple kindnesses.

I love our relationship. You won’t find us canoodling through Facebook, but if you stopped by one night you might hear us flirting with idle threats and curse words. It’s actually pretty beautiful.