The Strawberry Letter: I'm In The Military and Never Enlisted

Dear Steve and Shirley,

I am 57 years old and have been married to an intelligent, extremely good-looking 60-year-old man for 10 years. We're admired by friends and family because we seem to have the perfect marriage. At home and in public, we act like two teenagers in love. We send each other silly text messages all day and play all kinds of silly games at home. But there's one part of the marriage that's getting on my nerves.

My husband works on a military base and brings his job home with him every day. I'm usually home from work first, so I cook dinner so he can relax and eat after work. Instead, he comes in and starts looking around to see what's out of order. If I'm cooking, he adjusts the temperature of the pots on the stove. He prefers that I use the microwave as much as possible and has lectured me several times on how the microwave was invented to conserve energy. He regularly adds a little water to my perfectly good bottle of dishwashing liquid so it will last longer and expects all silverware and glassware to be spotless after I wash dishes.

Whenever I leave the house without him, he calls to tell me what I did wrong. I left the light on, the blinds were open too widely, or I didn't put the clean dishes away. The list goes on and on. In spite of our good times together, he keeps arguing with me about something I am not doing right. It gets to the point where I find more reasons to leave the house just for peace. I'm not one of his enlistees in the army. How can I get him to stop?