An Open Letter to the Best Father I'm Married To

Husband (center, left) and the other Best Father in my life (photo, right)

Dear Husband,

I love you, and you are one of the two best fathers in the world. I love that you looked so handsome as you gave the youngest two Boys wedding advice last November. I love that you took to this fathering gig with zest and enthusiasm and all the analytical prowess with which you are naturally endowed. I love that you love the Boys and still worry about them, even though they're all grown up now and probably should be worrying about us instead.

And I love you most of all because after all these years you love the mother of your Boys, which is the absolute best trait of a good father.

I will not insult your intelligence by saying that a successful marriage is a 50-50 partnership, nor even that a successful marriage requires each partner to give 110% because such faulty mathematics would not be appealing to you. No, I believe the successful marriage requires that each partner lovingly and consistently kick in 97% to the relationship.

And because your accounting gene requires the tying out of numbers, I'm sure you are asking about the remaining three percent. The remaining three percent I reserve for the times when I have gone to bed to read while you stayed up to watch the 10 o'clock news, when you come up to our room after the sports and I have just drifted off to sleep. I need those reserves then, when you're standing beside the bed to take off your glasses and your seasonal allergies kick in and you release a sinus-clearing sonic boom of a sneeze right over my port bow.

In that exact moment when I levitate straight up out of the bed? That's where I contribute the remaining three percent. I call it my "I Will Not Murder My Husband" reserve and the fact that you have survived to celebrate Father's Day is tribute to its effectiveness.

Thank you, Husband, for being such a good father. It is a joy and an honor to give you 97%.

Just don't test that extra three percent too often, okay?

Love from the mother of your Boys,

MomQueenBee