Today, we are all going to pretend that we are wives.

If you are a married woman, this should be easy. If you are a married man it won't be all that tough. If you are a single woman, this ought to be a piece of cake. If you're a single man, then you'll have to stretch your imagination.

Here's the deal...

You've been married for quite awhile. Maybe a dozen years. Maybe 16. You really love your husband. And he was a great, great husband.

He worked hard. He took care of you and the kids. He made a good living. Other wives wished their husbands were like him.

He had a great sense of humor. He was just about the best husband you could ever imagine. Some people said he was the best husband there ever was.

Then, he slipped up. He didn't mean it, but circumstances conspired against him. The two of you had a spat. More than a quarrel, but less than a full-fledged fight.

He ran out of the house and headed for a bar downtown, where the lights were dim, the music was loud and the drinks were cold. As luck would have it, that cute secretary who has been flirting with him, was in the same bar.

He called you on his cell phone from the bar, asking you to let him come back. You told him he could come back if he said he apologized and said he was sorry.

He didn't. He ended up going home with the cute secretary. People saw them out, at the theater and having dinner in fancy restaurants.

Your life continued. You explained what happened to your kids, and they took your side. That handsome teacher took you out for dinner, but he was a little too young, even though you liked him a lot.

Your husband hung out with that cute secretary for a short period of time, but then he decided he didn't really like her that much, and left her house.

He was adrift. Nobody in town saw him and you didn't know what he was thinking.

What do you do now?

The easy thing to do is not even talk to him. Just let him suffer.
But all your life, people have talked about what a wonderful person you are. The word people use about you all the time is "special."

How should you act now?

If you really are "special," you know what to do.

Forget holding a grudge. Forget being petty. Forget teaching him and everybody else a lesson.

Open your heart. Open the doors to your house. Tell him that you love him now and you'll always love him. Tell him you realize that things were said in the heat of the argument that you didn't really mean.

Tell him you forgive him. Tell him to come home.

And tell him that you will retire his jersey No. 4 during the first home game at Lambeau Field.