Yesterday was #WomanCrushWednesday, the one day a week when Instagram users are allowed to share a photo of a woman they want to have sex with. (I don’t actually know the official premise of the stupid theme.) I shared a photo of Mom and Buried, been there, done that! YEAH BOYEEEEEEEEE!

I chose a picture in which she looks really pretty, she’s clearly very happy, and is doing something mom-related because I’m nothing if not consistently ON BRAND. I also chose a picture in which her face is partially obscured, because a little anonymity is good and also it’s hilarious to constantly obscure her face. (Did you see the birthday pic I posted?)

She may not think it’s hilarious, but she knows who she married. She’s used to putting up with me.

Don’t you love that phrase?

When I shared that #WCW pic on my Facebook page, one of my readers said that exact thing: “You have a great one! Beautiful and puts up with you!”

First of all, I am the fucking BEST. Mom and Buried doesn’t put up with shit; she basks in my presence! If anything, I put up with her. With her stupid long-hair strands littered all over the house, and her inability to turn off a single light, and her refusal to ever put the butter back in the fridge. Ugh.

Second of all, she loves me!

I know this, because she tells me she loves me. She treats me like she loves me. She even occasionally writes notes in greeting cards explaining why she loves me. (When I give her greeting cards, I just underline the pre-written messages, because you can’t improve on Hallmark! Frankly, it’s insulting that she even attempts to!)

She doesn’t tell me she “puts up with me.” She doesn’t write notes detailing all the annoying stuff I do that she has to overcome in order to continue to bear life in my proximity (note to self: pitch Hallmark). She doesn’t put me down in order to pump herself up, and she doesn’t put herself down in order to express how lucky she is to have me (believe me, I already know).

You don’t put up with people you love, and if you do, it might be time to reevaluate things. So why is telling someone who they’re lucky to have a spouse who “puts up with them” a compliment?

Don’t worry, I’m not going all MRA on you – I know when someone says this it’s usually a stupid joke. (Although I’m pretty sure some of the commenters on my Huffington Post articles have been sincere.) But it’s not a joke that anyone ever says to a woman. No one ever tells a wife that she’s lucky her husband “puts up” with her (that paragraph above where I did that notwithstanding). At least no one that isn’t a sexist creep whose balls shrivel up at the thought of a woman being in charge.

Which is fine. My balls aren’t shriveled. I don’t put up with my wife. I chose to marry her, and to stay married to her. I want her around! (Besides, my kids have gotten used to her.)

And she chose me as much as I chose her. Don’t insult either of us by pretending we didn’t. She couldn’t have known I was going to turn into a raging asshole who bitches about his kids for web hits and won’t stop whining about Batman being more popular than Superman. It’s not her fault that when she finally found out the deal had been done and it was too late.

I guess she shouldn’t have signed that pre-nup!