Beautiful intervention brings couple closer

He sits with his wife on the back porch as the sun pulls its light in and low over the horizon, heading for its nightly slumber. She is fresh from the shower, hair pulled simply back, not one ounce of makeup on her face. Her wardrobe is jeans and a sweatshirt.

She talks, and his mind wanders. He is watching the sun bounce off her hair, exploding with colors of brown, gold and dancing lights. Everything about her is acute. The light accents the strong line of her jaw. He reads the lines of her midlife complexion like a cherished entry in a diary, lingering over every word. He follows the slight profile of her nose up and plunges his attention into brown eyes transfixing the way he breathes.

"Are you listening to me?" she asks with furrowed brow. The question startles him from his revelry. "Uh, no," he says in spontaneous honesty. "I was ... lost noticing that ... you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

She sighs. Rolls her eyes. "Stop it," she says. "I'm sitting here in lumpy clothes without any makeup on."

Before, words like these might have cowed him. Beat him into submission. But, truth be told, he actually has been laying for her on this subject. He has devised an intervention, waiting for just this moment.

"Is it hard being beautiful?" he asks, simply.

"What do you mean?" she fires back, her voice mounting, almost irritated.

"Well, it just seems like, when I notice that you're beautiful, it burdens you. Like you want to argue about it. Like I just handed you a bucket of dung, and you're indignant and don't know what you're supposed to do with it. You seem uncomfortable."

She's handcuffed now. Speechless. This intervention is right on schedule.

He smiles warmly at her, trying to put her at ease for the next part.

"I want you to make a decision, and then live with that decision. As I see it, you have three choices. You could decide that I was a liar. The sort of husband who has a motive to make up stories about his wife being beautiful. Maybe I want sex. Or maybe I think it's my duty to say, 'You're beautiful.' Or, you could decide that I'm not bright enough to know the difference between beautiful and not beautiful. You could just say that, in this marriage, you are in charge of that decision, and you will let me know when you are beautiful and when you are not. But, I'm not authorized to make the diagnosis 'beautiful.' "

Now she rests her mouth into her fist, staring at him from under her brow. She looks like a contestant that has just missed an easy question on a television game show. "Or ...," she asks, resigned.

"Or you could just 'man up' and deal with the fact that I think you're stunning. Beautiful. I love looking at you. Dressed up. Or dressed down. Or undressed. You could decide to understand and believe how wonderful and important that is for me. How much I value it. You could decide to value it, or at least to appreciate how much I value it. You could even bask in it. Revel in it. Tell yourself that you'd miss that if it was gone. You could decide that whatever discomfort it provokes in you is yours alone. You could stop arguing with me, because I'm not the one with whom you have an argument. You are arguing with yourself on this one."

"You're not going to let me out of this, are you?" she says, pursing her lips and nodding.

"Nope," he says, love pouring out of his eyes.

"So, it's my job to be beautiful in this relationship," she asks, joining the playfulness of the moment.

"It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it," he says.

She pauses, as if to consider the proposition. "OK." She throws up her hands. "I'm on it! Now ..."

"Now, what?"

"Now ... could you please 'man up,' get yourself together, deal with that fact that I'm The Goddess, and do whatever you do to bridle sexual ADHD and pay attention to me! Because I want to figure out the plan for tomorrow."

"I'll do my best," he says, laughing out loud. "But I make no promises."

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@ reviewjournal.com.