I'm THAT Jorge...

Tomorrow is my two-year wedding anniversary with Tara. We started dating seven years ago. 

One time, during one of our many email exchanges, my father realized just how obsessed I had become with mobile technology, particularly Google’s Android mobile operating system. Upon learning the extent of my enthusiasm, this was part of his response to me:

I knew you had become a fan of all of this stuff, but I’m really impressed with just how invested you’ve gotten. I’m glad to see that it is things like this, instead of women, that garners your attention these days. Believe it or not, it gives me insight into your commitment to your wife and to your marriage.

On first reading this, I chuckled. I thought it was a far-fetched conclusion to derive, simply based on the realization that I was REALLY into mobile tech news.

But I think he’s right.

There was a time when I came dangerously close to losing Tara for good. I called her one night four years ago, fully expecting it to be the last time we ever spoke. I even told her that I knew this would be it for us. I finished saying my piece and then waited for her to tell me she never wanted to speak to me again before hanging up. Instead, her response changed everything.

“I hate you so much right now. I am so angry. I don’t want to talk to you. But I still love you.”

Before I get carried away with all the mush and tingly feelings, it’s only fair [to me] to say this: Tara was a terrible, terrible girlfriend for the first three years of our relationship. The details are irrelevant, and they always will be. But this is truth. I don’t recall ever being in another relationship that was quite as frustrating as the one that I had with her during those early years. But I never broke up with her because……well, I don’t know. Let’s just say that I had a feeling about us, although I’m not sure if that was it. Maybe it was because she was so hot. Whatever the reason, this is where my claims as the victim reach their end.

Through a series of unfortunate and idiotic decisions, Tara and I did a major role-reversal. She suddenly became good to me and I became the worst kind of boyfriend. I don’t know exactly how or when it happened, but I eventually stopped deserving her. And that was the place we were in when she told me over the phone that she couldn’t stand me, but somehow still loved me.

I remember that phone call so vividly because it was the day that everything turned around for me. I no longer cared whether she could ever be the “right woman” for me. My only concern was what I could do….how I could change to be the right man for her. And I did. I say that with pride and with a dash of justifiable cockiness. I became worthy of her love again and I never looked back.

Nobody does everything perfectly. In fact, my failures as a husband never seem to stop. But I give my wife a back rub two or three mornings every week. I make her dinner. I wash her clothes. I constantly tell her I love her and I let her be “right” as often as possible. I watch the most absurd teen vampire love stories with her (but I never do it quietly. We all have our limits!) I ask her questions about glasses and listen to her horror stories about vision insurance gone bad. I stay by her side every waking moment for the days immediately following a surgery, so as to make sure that her recovery is as painless as possible. I even went back to church and chose life as a Christian when none of it made any sense to me, just because I knew it would make her happy. And yeah—if you place a Victoria’s Secret model in front of me next to the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tablet with Android, you had better believe that I will be gawking over that sweet Galaxy Tab.

This is not me being a good husband. This is me loving my wife. A woman so unbelievably worthy of a man far better than I will ever be. But if there is anything that makes me worthy of this woman, it is the fact that I will never stop doing everything in my power to deserve her.

I hope she knows what my father saw before anyone else. In some completely strange way, when I am boring my wife to death with my talk about football or high-end smart phones, I am really showing her that because she is in my life, no other woman will ever have my attention again.

I love my wife. I surely do.

Two years of marriage down, an eternity to go.