So who is "The better half"?

I was always raised to believe that the Wife was considered "the better half" of a marriage. I guess mainly because you always hear people asking married men, "Where's the better half?". So I assumed that since he was out roaming around without her, she must be doing something important such as watching kids, cleaning something around the house, grocery shopping, etc.
But I am not so sure about that.

Take my Hubby and I for example, he is Mr. Clean while I am more (ahem) relaxed about how clean the house is. It's not like we have pack rats making a monthly odyssey to our house to collect or anything, there isn't garbage all over the floor (well, maybe in the kids' rooms.) it's just a very lived in house. It sort of has to be, we have 5 kids.

It amazes me how opposites attract. Not saying that my Hubby and I are total opposites, we used to talk for hours on end about anything and everything. But the cleaning thing- well, we are at almost different ends of the spectrum.

Like I said in an earlier post, I am a pile person. I have a pile of stuff here, one there. This drives my Husband nuts. There is never a need for a pile as far as he is concerned- ever. "No piles, life is good." is one of his mottoes. Mine is "I'll put this here in this pile for a minute and between running after a 3 year old, doing dishes, laundry, running kids to/from school, and making dinner I might get to it sometime in this life."

Sometimes he tries to make me feel guilty about my piles. He took pictures of my desk, (which was a mess, I admit, but it always has been- even before we got married.) and sent it to friends or showed it to them when they were over here.

I've been trying to be better about my piles, really, I have. But sometimes it is just impossible for me to avoid making one. Like the time between when the kids get home from school and my Husband gets home from work. My oldest two trot out their papers that need to be signed, read, looked over, corrected, and/or thrown away, and it takes me forever to go through it all. And what happens if I don't get through it all? You guessed it, a brand spanking new pile is formed. One that I vow to get to as soon as dinner is done.

I would say 99% of my piles consist of paper. I probably have 100's of dead trees in my house due to all the papers that are in piles. I cleaned off my desk not too long ago and went through every piece of paper on it and what did I find? Things from when my daughter was in 5th and 6th grade. That's 2-3 years worth of piles. Buried and forgotten.

So when I ask who is "the better half", maybe the answer isn't so obvious in my house. My Husband has loads of patience when it comes to putting up with my piles. (almost 4 years' worth of patience, he finally blew up at me over them last month.) I would venture to say that any given moment either one of us could claim the title of "the better half." And we each have those little things that bother us to distraction, making it difficult to claim the title full time.

If I were to be fair, I would say (hope) that we share that title half and half. I always want to be his better half, but I always feel he is mine. Because I Love Him.