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"Rex is out of town this week. I tend talk a big game about how independent I am. And truthfully? Some weeks? I can&amp;#039;t wait for him to go so I can just do what I want to do, when I want to do it. I don&amp;#039;t want to worry if the smell of the coffee is going to interfere with his vanilla scented Yankee candle or his perfectly brewed Stash tea. I don&amp;#039;t want to rush through a patch job on the walls because he&amp;#039;s sick of tripping over paint cans on his nightly toothbrush expedition. I don&amp;#039;t want to worry if a few friends linger until 9PM on a Tuesday when all he wants is some quiet time to decompress from work and watch Stargate Atlantis in silence. It&amp;#039;s awesome being my own agent, and for two nights straight, I&amp;#039;ve brewed coffee until 10PM, flipped through blogs until 2am, and even finished a novel in the bathtub without fretting about waking him up. But now, with more days of silence ahead of me than behind me, I&amp;#039;m kind of, well... missing him. To quote a popular country song, &amp;quot;My nights are lonely, my days are so sad... I just keep thinking about the love that we had. I&amp;#039;m missing you. And nobody knows it but me.&amp;quot; Well, no one but me and whoever else who wandered over to this site to hear me whining. Today, as I looked around my disheveled casa, it hit me how much this man contributes to my life. Because of him, we always have clean laundry. We don&amp;#039;t have rancid smells rising from overflowing trashcans. Even though it&amp;#039;s my job to empty the trash, it&amp;#039;s his gentle reminders that get it done. That and, never one to be shown up, I do it much more consistently when he&amp;#039;s around just so I don&amp;#039;t have to give him the satisfaction of nudging me. Even if it&amp;#039;s at the exact moment I hear the garage door open, signaling he&amp;#039;s home from work.  Oh, let&amp;#039;s not forget that since he tends to eat better than I do, the incentive to have fresh milk, fruit and bread goes out the window when he&amp;#039;s M.I.A... Along with the toilet paper. Turns out napkins will work in a pinch, but emphasis on the pinch in all the wrong places. My Prince Charming is a gentle reminder that Prince Charmin is really the way to go. One could say with a list like that I miss the worker bee Rex, not Rex himself. And honestly, you&amp;#039;d have a point. Lori Gottlieb, a single mother and writer found through published author Rachel Sarah&amp;#039;s website www.singlemomseeking.com, sums up the value of partnership, not romance, in her article The Case For Mr. Not Quite Right, &amp;quot;What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks. So what if Will and Grace weren&amp;#039;t having sex with each other? How many long-married couples are having much sex anyway?&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s got the lack of sex thing down \u2013 I gotta hand it to her. But I also have to say that, in Rex&amp;#039;s defense, and I&amp;#039;m sure many of your husbands&amp;#039;, true romance once existed. It might get buried under the day-to-day burdens that domestic life calls for, but it&amp;#039;s still there and can be resurrected. And I can promise this: Once my hunter gets this house running to my gatherer&amp;#039;s satisfaction, there will be a lot more romance in this here dwelling.  As many people have said way better than me, I think Gottlieb&amp;#039;s argument for &amp;quot;settling&amp;quot; has both pros and cons. It all depends on what you consider settling. For me, I wouldn&amp;#039;t ever settle for someone I didn&amp;#039;t find honest, kind, attractive and someone who I knew loved me unconditionally. Rex fit that bill 100%. What I failed to realize, in the blushing first stages of romantic love, is that romance is not what runs a household, gets the kids washed, or folds the ironing. Romance is not always practical in the day to day. But it&amp;#039;s so necessary to keep the spark of marriage alive, and it&amp;#039;s something I aim to never forget, even if I&amp;#039;ve been guilty of it in the past.  Do you see what goes through my mind when I&amp;#039;m left to my own devices? I guess it&amp;#039;s true what they say, you don&amp;#039;t realize what you have, until it&amp;#039;s gone. This goes for sex &amp;amp;amp; romance, as well as housework and husbands.  Now if you&amp;#039;ll excuse me, I have an infiltration of gnats to attend to. My life really is that sexy. Rex.... Get home!!!! If you take care of these flies, I can promise another fly that I&amp;#039;ll take care of zippery zippety quick. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a2234/romantic-unconditional-love/?src=shelter_footer>