What’s really troubling isn’t anything that you wrote, but the number of times other replies accuse you of abuse or imply the same.

You’re a strong woman, as Southern women tend to be (I’m an escapee from the MS Delta). That’s part of Southern culture. My wife is Asian, and she’s every bit as strong as any woman I’ve ever known. I’m not intimidated by a strong woman — indeed, it’s a long-standing observation not only in my household but among almost all other men I’ve known in truly long-term relationships, that the wife is the boss in the household. Ask any successful car salesman or Realtor and they’ll tell you it’s the wife who normally makes the final decision.

That being said, my own authority is secure. If I decide that I will have the final say, then I will do so and she will comply (though if I make the wrong decision, she’ll never let me forget it). But I do that only rarely — not because I’m afraid of her reaction, but because I know I can trust her to almost always make the right decision. In other words, I support her authority and she supports mine…and it works wonderfully.

Having a wife strong enough to take all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, chew them up, spit them out, and fire them back at the enemy is not a sign of weakness in a man. It’s much more often a sign that he’s secure enough in his own manhood that he doesn’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone. If she needs me to step in and bring the metaphorical testosterone-powered big guns to bear, she’ll let me know. Until then, as the saying goes, don’t worry about it — she’s got this.

Lastly, my wife and I are newlyweds…and have been for the past 27 years. True love is real — it’s the realest thing I know…because we’ve got it. The only sad thing is that true love is so tragically rare.