First and foremost, she gains cleaning. Everything except bathrooms.

Half the cooking. She has dietary restrictions, I don’t. We don’t eat outside of home often. Except phở bò.

Every form of maintenance. Cars, computers, all machines and objects with moving parts.

Weekends away with friends. I never question and I never say no.

Few hard feelings when she’s temperamental.

What do I gain?

I’ll probably live longer because she makes me go to the doctor, the dentist, physiotherapy, and reduces my cheese and bacon intake. But not salt. She loves salt.

I gain perspective. I don’t occupy i high tower where I know everything and remain academically distant and untouched by the world. I gain knowledge of all the books I don’t (and wouldn’t) read. I gain access to emotional and psychological non-fiction content.

Finally, I gain the companionship of someone who lets me do my wierd. Nothing kinky or malicious or wasteful or destructive — just unreasonably high standards and unreasonably low output. No blame for it as long as bills are paid and food is in the fridge.

She’d like to see me try to shoot the moon, and I love her for it. We’ll see. I can’t even put together a string of Lemmy posts worthy of acclaim.