When You're Married to a Genius...

What do you do when you're just some ordinary chump married to a genius? I've heard that people can get quite defensive or try to play a game of one-upmanship, as if your relationship were some kind of competition. You might feel a bit -- or a lot -- intimidated by so much genius settling down on her pillow next to you every night.

So I've been asking myself over the last few months: why am I not intimidated by my wife's genius? Why have I never been locked in that all-too-common struggle to prove my own worth? I still don't have a good answer, but I think it has to do with our complementary relationship. She tells me I bring things to the table that she doesn't have, and through me she sees and experiences the world in a new way. And she, of course, completes me in ways that only she could.

My trip-partner at work.

I look at my wife and marvel. She teaches 10th, 8th, 6th, and 1st grades to our daughters, so she's juggling chemistry, reflexive pronouns, least common multiples, and phonics. She can explain passages in the Aeneid to one kid and then turn around and cheerfully read Go, Dog, Go! to another. She edits for Evernight, writes some of the most interesting and hottest fiction out there right now, and can help me with my university research of Visual Syntactic Text Formatting.

It's as if she's a dual-wielding battle goddess, with edits in one hand and her own fiction in the other. No, no. Wait. It's mama-duties in one hand and wifely-loving in the other. No, no. It's teaching in one and academic research in the other. Actually, I think she just has six hands. I'll have to look her over later...

Anyway, I get confused after a while and can't keep up. I've stopped trying. It's never been a competition. It's about love. I love her in the best way I know how, and she loves me better than any woman has ever loved a man. Ever. I guess that comes with the big brain. They say the brain is the biggest sex organ, so smart girls do it better.

You can't see me, but I'm nodding vigorously right now.

"Getting lucky" doesn't do justice to what she does with me. But here's the question I have for all the ladies. My wife likes it rough. She loves the domination, the way I play with her like a lion. She's my kitten, helpless in my hands. Is this because she's super smart, so she needs to be able to lose control? She needs to be conquered?  Is this common among intelligent women, or is it a peculiarity of my wife's personality?

Smart girls do it better, and as my wife is the smartest woman I know, I've never seen a better wife, lover, mother, teacher, researcher, writer, or editor.

Sometimes I need a day alone with her among the flowers
to remind her how much I love her.

Did I mention that her baking is to die for and that she speaks Japanese and Italian in addition to her native English? What can I say?

She does it best. Everything.
(mr ad)