This is true, but where’s the joke? If Loretta was insulting Leroy, I would understand this as a standard Lockhorn comic, and not needing anything additional. But this doesn’t seem mean, so much as a basic statement of fact. If anything, it’s a little reassuring.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Maybe the writer on The Lockhorns has recently changed, and the new writer DOESN’T actually hate their spouse?
“You call this living?”
Well, there’s only one way to stop aging. Maybe Loretta is rooting for that?
Getting old is no fun but it’s better than the alternative.
It’s a humorous aphorism with self-fulfilling logic. So that’s a fair joke. But I admit it is very much out of style from the usual meanness of the Lockhorns. But… we should complain?
I for one applaud this comic since it’s not mean spirited as we’ve come to expect.
Nice shout-out for DuBose Heyward. (Yeah, I had to look it up.)
Hmmm… I shoulda read further. Ira had a hand in it, too.
DuBose Heyward wrote the book and collaborated on the libretto, but when you’ve got clever internal rhymes like “who calls it livin’ when no gal will give in” you know Ira was involved.
Yeah, that’s what got me thinkin enough to go back and double check.
“Maybe the writer on The Lockhorns has recently changed, and the new writer DOESN’T actually hate their spouse?”
Things change. Beetle Bailey and Sarge appear to be the best of friends now.
After combating each other for decades, Tom & Jerry became good friends and ceased their asocial, “bad example for kids” fighting. The resulting cartoons were worthless, of course, except that they led to a hilarious “Itchy & Scratchy” parody on “The Simpsons”.
She does have someone working with her since husband died – but that has been years, if not a decade or more.
Mark In Boston: “Things change. Beetle Bailey and Sarge appear to be the best of friends now.”
Such good friends that Sarge will beat up Beetle Bailey to make sure that they stay friends!