8 Reasons why my husband and I are still married (Sorry, I couldn’t think of two more reasons to round it out ).

Sometimes I’m shocked by how old we sound. Here we were, on our way to church (of course we were!), when I realized that these types of conversations happen when you’ve been married for a long time. We had just bickered briefly about the former whereabouts of a hair salon called Xanado, after we passed the new location. We gave up quickly as neither side was willing to concede and because neither one of us was in a contentious enough mood to whip this innocuous subject into a full-blown argument. We moved on to discuss a woman that we knew that worked there. “Are she and Tony still together?’ I asked. “nah,” my husband replied, “they broke up years ago, actually, it was more like decades ago.” He said this seriously but I burst into laughter because it  sounded so ridiculous and so old. It made me realize that I must have picked up a few pointers along the way that I will gladly share, but as you read them, please consider the source. Although we have managed to stay married for 25 years, we have wrangled over every banal subject under the sun, and I don’t think that it will change anytime soon.

#8 Keep the fights clean: we don’t do this at all, we are terrible, dirty fighters. We have thrown rings and insults, we fight bitterly and often and sometimes go to bed angry, Our disagreements once prompted my then six-year old niece to say, “you two are always either fighting or kissing”. This is very true. Some couples say they don’t argue at all. I don’t know if this is bad or good, You could say that they have less passion in their marriage but then again, they also would have a lot less heartache and probably more sleep.  Never mind this advice, I’m not fit to give it.

#7 Know each others strengths and weaknesses: This took us years and years to realize. When our daughter was a baby, I thought that things should be fair. We both worked and I felt that on our days off, he should take turns with me getting up early. We never fought more than during that bleak period of time, I really didn’t understand that he was a night owl and that as a life long early bird, it made more sense for me to get up, at least most of the time. When our son arrived six years later, we had seven years of marriage and parenthood under our belts and came up with a plan that worked for both of us. He would take the “night shift”, and I would do  the “morning shift”. Our son was sensitive as a baby and never slept well. After nursing him,  sometimes he slept, but often he needed to be walked or rocked for hours and would wake up as soon as these activities stopped. My husband was on duty until 2 am, and when the baby woke after that, I would take over. Since I was usually in bed by 9 pm, this actually felt like a suitable arrangement at the time, but writing this now, my gosh, this sounds like a miserable existence! My point is though, we figured out a way to make it work by using our strengths to our favor rather than our weaknesess against us.

#6 Have fun together: Millennials call this “date night” and that is fine and good  for them, but when we were just starting out, we had no money for date nights. I am well aware that this makes me sound old, but don’t worry, I wont launch into one of those, “when we were your age” parables. Suffice it to say that we have never really spent much money in the pursuit of merriment. Oh, we have taken family trips to amusement parks and beaches, we have gone out to eat by ourselves and to the movies and Broadway plays and museums. Sometimes though these have ended up feeling like a commandment to have fun.’ Thou shall take thy family to the beach and all will have fun, for thou art an American family.’ But one sandy bottom, two sunburned shoulders and three temper tantrums later and the whole “happy family” sham topples like a house of cards. These family pursuits of happiness have not all been failures. We have had fun too, but our favorite times together are simpler arrangements. Walks, board games or cribbage, playing softball together on our church team, jeep and four-wheeler rides,  hiking, (when he makes me feel guilty that I haven’t gone with him in years), shopping ,(when I make him feel guilty), all things that we do for our “date nights”. For me, I don’t care if we are just sitting on the couch watching Surviver, as long as he keeps making me laugh during the commercials.

#5 If at all possible, sleep in separate beds!!!  OK, this is a weird thing to say, and certainly this would not work for every couple, but I’m just going to say it anyway.  Because for us,  given that we are polar opposites in many ways, especially in our sleep habits, if we had not done this about 15 years ago, we probably  would be divorced now. This is why this works for us: I go to bed early, he goes to bed late. I have my covers tucked, his are swirled around like a hurricane hit his bed. I make my bed as soon as I am on my feet in the morning, if he makes his at all, it is a few minutes before he climbs into at night. I have a top sheet (who doesn’t?!?), he does not. I sleep with my electric blanket on from September until June, he is like a furnace and needs only one blanket. I like to have a mattress topper, he does not, “That stupid thing is too hot and soft”. I’m sure you get the picture. Sleeping apart has actually not separated us, it has brought us closer. I guess the real lesson here is, don’t be afraid to let go of what you think a couple should look like. Create your own bubble.

#4 Remember what attracted you on him in the first place: My husband is a bad boy,  I have always gone for the bad boy. They are exciting and dangerous and everything I am not. Bad boys are fun to date but a nightmare to marry. At least he was for the first several years, Still is sometimes, but although he hasn’t changed, my attitude has. For the first several years, I tried to change him and mold him to my version of the perfect husband. This created so much drama that I wondered if we could ever get through it. But, about the time that our daughter starting having problems with a bully at school, I realized the value of having a tough customer on your team. He has dealt with every tricky situation, including somehow, the bully,  and walked head on into difficult and sometimes dangerous situations to protect and to keep our family together. He also keeps things interesting, as he did when he followed a staff member at a rock concert, acting like he knew what he was doing to obtain a front row, standing room only section, a spot so close that someone in our party excitedly proclaimed that they had gotten a performers sweat on them. This may not be your souse. Your spouse might be the solid, boring one, as I am. Remember, what you liked and admired about that person and try to be thankful  that they are different from you. which brings me to…

#3 Embrace the differences: My husband and I are like night and day. He is bipolar and has ADHD. Because of this, he is spontaneous, and colorful, fun and a risk taker. But, he has so much going on in his brain that at times, he is overwhelmed and can become anxious. I am solid as a rock, but a little bland and not much of a risk taker as evidenced by the fact that I have been working at the same facility since I was 16, that’s 28 years if you are counting! He helps me to have fun and I help him to stay calm and grounded. He wrestled with the kids while I kept things on schedule. He hunted, fished, rode ATV’s, hiked and showed them wildlife, and I read and watched movies with them, went to every game, meet and event and most practices, sat in waiting rooms, filled out insurance forms and comforted the sick and injured. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we did these thing together and because the my job requires me to work every other weekend, he was pressed into service and nicely filled my shoes as Mom, albeit, a fun one. Last night, I asked him to make me a grilled cheese, because he makes  the best, and when I was finished eating he asked me to make him a “big sandwich”, a giant deli cheese and sliced ham stuffed affair. I could have made my own grilled cheese and he could have made his own sandwich, and twenty years ago, we probably would have, reluctant to ask a favor, lest one of us be beholden to the other and unwilling to admit that we each have skills the other does not. These days though, older and wiser, we see this as a benefit, not a competition.  I never liked wrestling on the floor with a rambunctious kid and he is not really a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

#2 On the big issues it helps to agree: We may be the Bickersons  about mundane things, but on the big issues we agree, To me, these are, politics, religion and money. well, we really don’t agree on money, because he is generous to a fault and also never in my life I have I seen someone literally lose money like he does. I’ve actually witnessed it fall to the ground, not that surprising as he does not like a wallet and instead stuffs bills in his front pocket. But, we do agree that I’m the better manager of it so usually I handle the bills and do whatever I want with it except for large ticket items. Those, we talk about. Although, it’s really not much of a discussion as the more I spend, the better he likes it. The other two issues, we agree on. He is maybe a little more zealous about politics and I am more so about religion, but we do agree and because our values mesh, we have had a solid foundation to build our marriage.

#1 Prayer (Don’t stop reading here!) This is not the part where I try to force my Christian values on you. I know that not everyone who reads this believes in the power of prayer and that’s OK. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, as my mother has been known to say. Actually, I hate that saying. Anyway, Prior to meeting my husband, I had a few relationships, that after a time,  I felt the need to pray about. Each time, I asked that if this was not the right person for me, to end it now. Four times I did this, and three times the relationship ended in a week. To some, this might seem like a coincidence or maybe that I was just acting out what I obviously felt anyway or why would I have prayed in the first place. Whatever you believe, if you find yourself at a crossroads why not throw that prayer out there? It wont hurt either way.

So, that’s it. I’m sure there are many reasons that we are still married that I have not mentioned.  Chief among them, might be stubbornness, convenience and maybe we actually love each other (I know we do). It’s a gamble for sure. The stakes are high but the payoff is higher, at least for us. Now, pardon me while I have my husband read this. I’m pretty sure I know just what he will say. “oh, that’s nice, I look like an irresponsible jerk and you look like the martyr”. We quite possibly will argue about it this afternoon. apparently,  that’s just the way we like it.

P.S. What he actually said after he read it was , “Yeah, that’s nice, it’s pretty good……..martyr”.

Thanks for reading,

Susannah Warner