Rethinking Love

That day began in the most ordinary way. The drive to work, the traffic, the nagging of the boss about urgent tasks. Barely had time to drink a cup of coffee, I noticed two unanswered calls from my wife on my cell phone. I decided to call back later. I sat down at my desk and turned on the monitor. And then the wife calls again:

– Please come home immediately, there is a very important matter.
– Honey, how do you imagine it? I just walked into the office, the boss is already
displeased, and you want me to leave right away?!
– Please,” she wouldn’t let up, “take some time off, think of something! This is very important!
– Yeah, what the hell happened?
– You see, my friend, the one who works at the radio, called. There is an opportunity to do a show about family relationships. You know how important this is for promoting my trainings on the Internet. I’ve been out of work for six months; this is my only source of income. You’re welcome! I don’t ask you to do anything that often!
– But, dear, maybe another day, it’s not like I’m sunbathing in Ibiza either…
– No, I’m telling you, you can’t have another day! They had an accidental formation today.
two-hour window. It’s one chance in a thousand, you know? I’m getting crushed.
For every customer! And there are so many people hearing my name on the radio! Come on, honey, come out, there’s no time, I have to be at the studio in an hour and a half…

All the way home I saw the skeptical face of my boss. Apparently, my story about the sudden illness of some relative did not seem convincing to him. But I promised I’d go back to the office tonight and take care of business.

– What’s taking so long, we’re going to be late! – Right from the doorstep my wife attacked me. – There you go to the bathroom, let’s go! – I was already on edge and could barely contain myself from responding rudely.

In the car I noticed that my wife was shaking with excitement.
– Calm down already! You’ll be fine! We’ll make it! You made me quit my job.
– All you ever think about is your job! You have no time for me at all!
– Now I was shaking, too, and I could barely contain my irritation.

A motorcyclist cut us off at a traffic light and I braked sharply, nearly hitting him.
– Careful, you’re not carrying wood,” the wife grumbled, rubbing her bruised knee. Then my nerves gave out and I poured everything I had accumulated inside her. She started screaming back, but then she cried like a baby. We didn’t talk or look at each other for the rest of the road.

Before entering the studio, I threw it to her:
– Wash your face! – She didn’t answer. “Okay,” I said to myself, “it’s radio, we can do this…”
In the waiting room, some guy took me aside. He smiled at me – he must have sensed my condition – and I calmed down a little. It’s a good thing you can’t see any faces or emotions on the radio.

The guy said my wife and I would be sitting in separate rooms, with different presenters talking to us separately. There will be no live broadcast, they will edit the show later. I thought it was even better that way – I didn’t want to swear on air.

And here we are in the studio. I’m almost calm. The host turned on the tape, introduced my wife and I as almost perfect spouses, and then immediately dumbfounded me with the question, “Do you ever hate each other?” And I got carried away:

– Of course it happens! She always has some kind of complaint against me! He’s always demanding things, never agrees with me, argues until he’s not talking about anything…” I had quite a long speech. I could hardly stop – there was so much more I wanted to say.

The host listened without interrupting, and quietly asked: “What do you love your wife for?” And that’s when it hit me. It wasn’t easy to switch from negative to positive. I tried to fake a smile and started talking about how we’ve been together for years. About the kids. About the hardships we went through together, etc. But by the look on the presenter’s face I realized that it wasn’t all that. I took a deep breath and got to the main point:

– You see, she always supports me no matter what I do. She believes in me! Gives me strength. Wants me to succeed. He wants us to be together everywhere. I appreciate it very much…” I spoke and felt the warmth of my wife overwhelm me.

The presenter asked a couple of other unimportant questions: how do you cope with difficulties? What is your advice to listeners? I shot off on autopilot, and we said goodbye.

I took my wife home – we didn’t talk, of course – and went back to work.
But I couldn’t help thinking that I shouldn’t have been so frank; after all, everything that happens in a family is an internal matter. I even wanted to call the radio and ask them not to put all that negativity into the program. But my wife and I still weren’t talking, I didn’t have the phone number, and the call never happened.

The day of the broadcast has arrived. The broadcast began with the wife’s answers. Unlike me, she was immediately asked, “What do you love your husband for?” The wife answered with tenderness and love, as
as if there had been no quarrel between us that day. I felt ashamed. “Okay,
thought,” Let’s see what you answer the question about hatred. After a brief commercial break, however, they immediately launched into my answer to the question of why I love my wife. I wonder where they put the negative? But soon the music began to play and the show was over.

Wow! They cut out everything I said about hate on the air. I was shocked! Why did the presenter even ask that? I would only ask about love. But I gave away a lot and now I felt very uncomfortable.

That’s when I realized that he did it on purpose. He led me to the topic of love through negativity and then took everything away, leaving only the good. But both my story and my wife’s were vivid and emotional. And if he had asked only about love, I would have answered with standard phrases.

I thought about it for a long time and realized one more thing. Love does not exist by itself, it must be created! It’s like that show: we need to cut out all the negativity from our “airwaves” and leave only what makes us happy. There will always be negativity, of course; there is no way around it! But we don’t talk about him. At all! It’s like he doesn’t exist. We only want to see the good in each other! Because I really do love her a lot!