Some of you will have colorful, funny replies to that question. Stop. It’s rhetoric.If you don’t count George Clooney and a few select others, I’ve only loved one man in my life. One was enough. Everybody’s nice guy turned out to be a part-time pain in the…well, you know. I couldn’t figure it out. One day my eyes were the most beautiful, my cooking the nectar of the Gods…then the quiet began…not sulking…just disconnected.

Turns out I had been mean about, and possibly dismissive to, the woman he had loved and admired all his life, his Mom. I somehow thought that was part of being a married grown-up, bad-mouthing the in-laws. Little did I expect that doing so would hurt his feelings, make him feel defensive and torn between the two women he loved most.

Duh!

Then our little boy was born. I eventually learned that one day he would fall in love and–with failures in between–I set out to grow into a mother-in-law my son’s Beloved could like. By ‘trying on that shoe’ I learned that one important way I could love my guy–who still makes me go weak in the knees–was to love his Mother.

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