The Perfect Wife

This is Jesse. I am a loyal reader of this blog (mostly because I like to see what embarrassing things Lysh writes about me) but this is only the second time I have actually posted something myself. My wife has no idea that I am doing this. Why would I decide to post now? After reading the previous post, I felt sadness in my heart. Alysha is so hard on herself! She often gets down on herself for not living up to her "perfect" self. It is somewhat hypocritical of me to condemn self-criticism, since I do the same thing, probably worse than she does. But, here's why I felt sad when I read her post: I know that my personality can be rather controlling and critical sometimes. Even when something is more that perfect, I usually give the vibe that it's "not good enough." (Talk about a crappy personality trait...I'm working on it.) Alysha tries so hard to make me happy every single day. She even worries about the trivial things that bother me sometimes; things that really don't matter! You'll notice in her last post, in her "list" of shortcomings, she mentioned "vegetables, fruits, exercise, and clean house." For those of you who know Ms. Alysha Lanham, know that she doesn't enjoy eating veggies. Her favorite foods? Hot Cheetos, pasta, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Is that bad? NOT AT ALL! 

My computer is dying, so I'm gonna cut to the chase. What I am getting at is that I feel responsible for the pressure Alysha feels to be a perfect-exercise-veggie-eating-freak. For those of you who know Mr. Jesse Lanham, know that I spend half my life at the gym or out running. I drink spinach smoothies, and love things to be overly organized and clean. So when I see that my dear wife has listed those same things in the previous self-criticizing post, I felt like poop because it's pretty obvious that I am directly influencing Alysha to feel that way. Somehow Alysha has decided that many of my strengths are her "weaknesses" and that causes her to feel like she is falling short as a person. I know she didn't express her feelings in her previous post to make me feel bad. On the contrary, she is so wonderful because she really does want to be better in all those things! I guess what I am getting at is, I just want to set things straight, apologize to Alysha for my overbearing personality, and let her know how incredible she is. She sometimes forgets the advice that our sealer gave us at our wedding. " Don't compete with one another." We each have our strengths, and we should help each other by simply encouraging them. It's a good thing we aren't in an actual competition, because the truth is that I am WAY behind Alysha in so many other ways. So much so that those my so-called strengths actually seem pretty lousy in comparison.  really don't matter at all. Let me expound a bit:

Basically, I don't tell her enough how wonderful she is. My sweet wife, Alysha, is literally the angel of my life. I've called her that since we were dating. One definition of "angel" is: one class of spiritual beings; a celestial attendant of God; a person having angelic qualities such as beauty, purity, or kindliness. Is that not the perfect description of Alysha? I'm not trying to sound like the "cute-husband-who-says-sweet-things-publicly-about-his-wife-so-that-everyone-will-think-he's-super" husband. I'm being serious. I am simply letting everyone know, including Alysha, how wonderful she is! She spends half her life, not in front of a gym mirror, but at a nursing home helping those people who can't help herself. And she doesn't do it because we need money to pay rent, but because she LOVES it. She lives to serve others, and has found her life calling in service. If I could only have an ounce of her ability, I'd be a decent man. She literally makes me so happy. Just the thought of spending eternity with this woman fills my soul with pure joy and makes me think, "What did I ever do to deserve such a pure, loving, Christlike companion?" 

Your imperfections are what make you so perfectly wonderful, Alysha. Quit being so hard on yourself. You're the perfect wife. I love you.

J