'I Love You'

After almost fifty-eight years of married life, it is a natural and deeply meant thing for me to tell First Wife Iris, “I love you,” often several times in one day. Sometimes I use that expression as a thanks when she brings me a warm up for coffee while I’m reading the paper, or reminds me to take my pills. “I love you” is an inseparable part of our life and I can’t exactly explain the difference, but it is not the same as when we met, went bananas, and started our life together.

This change in the meaning of “I love you” is gradual. Though it still has some of that old romantic fire still burning it doesn’t mean I want more kids. Thinking over this integral part of the relationship between couples is common and I wrote a column on this matter when we had been married only 30 years. Here’s what came out at that time, Sept. 9, 1987:

The phrase “I love you” is a lot like violin playin’. It is either beautiful or it’s lousy. Professor William Foster at Texas A & M says that a survey he conducted shows that men are usually the first to say those three little words in the course of a developing relationship.

 He said that males do it because of several reasons, one is that they are expected to lead the way, and another is they often sense the female may be “slipping away.” 

He goes on to say that some relationships are constructed over a long period of time whereas others are sudden and impulsive.

I understand all that, but I think women have an intuitive cunning and guile for getting the guy to commit himself, providing they are interested in him: and the male in that situation doesn’t remember what he said or who said “it” first.

If a male is really smitten, the female can get him to stand on his head and sing Jingle Bells at the County Landfill. 

There is no defense against this power … even great experience and maximum masculine intelligence is useless, a toothpick against the charging rhino. 

When I had been dating “first wife Iris” for a couple of weeks, I merely suggested that she stop seeing a couple of those bb-brains she had been going out with, and concentrate on some quality stuff.

She says that I said “it” first and that may be true. I have no idea. I do know, in a few months we were in a hotel in Vancouver, B.C., with a lot of rice in the suitcases.

Professor Owen isn’t doing completely useless research, but he ran his survey among unmarried students between the ages of 18 and 25. 

If he wants to develop some meaningful data he should try asking fully matured married people.

I’ll bet 90 percent of the males have no idea when they first said … “I love you.”

Here in 2016, I tell Iris “I love you” because she has given her life to making my life a wondrous adventure and made me a much better person than I was when I suggested she get rid of those other guys.

It doesn’t matter who said it first.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.