Formerly known as 8 reasons.

I wrote this a year ago, and just reread it for the first time when it popped up on my timeline. I’m kind of surprised at myself for forgetting a few good reasons why we are still married. Maybe, I didn’t forget, maybe they are just things I have learned over the last year. If that’s the case, then hopefully I can add to this yearly, like a modern-day epistle. I’m going to aim for 100 reasons, although, for this year, I think I’ll be happy with getting to ten, Here are #9, and #10, which I’ll tack on the bottom..

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 the following 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 Xana-do, 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 who we used to know who worked there. “Is she still with Tony?” 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 (now 26!), we have wrangled over every banal subject under the sun, and I don’t think that it will change anytime soon.

#1 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 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.

#2 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 or 10 pm, this actually felt like a suitable arrangement at the time, but writing this now, my goodness, 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 weaknesses against us.

#3 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 Survivor, as long as he keeps making me laugh during the commercials.

#4 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. I’m not saying that he can’t come visit, but when its time to get down to the serious business of sleep, (and the older you get, the more you treat it seriously), he needs to pack up and go back home.

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.

#5 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 keeps things interesting… I think I’ll leave it at that. This may not be your spouse. 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…

#6 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 almost 30 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, 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 style heated 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.

#7 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 as 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 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.

#8 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 won’t 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”.

Addendum: 2018 

#9 Appreciate the little things: Whenever we go out to a Chinese restaurant, my husband always gives me his fortune cookie, not because he doesn’t like them, but because, “you like them more.” This small act of selflessness is what I think love is all about. A marriage, I think, can be made or broken by the little things. Of course, there are big things that can cause a break-up; infidelity and abuse chief among them, but in many marriages, I think it might be more about the little things that we do,or don’t do for each other that can make all the difference. Forehead kisses, foot-rubs, picking wildflowers, holding the door open for me, putting washer fluid in my car, leaving notes in my lunchbox, he does little things for me all the time, and they mean so much more to me than any grand sweeping gesture. He’s far better at this than I am, which brings me to…

#10 Keep working on it: A marriage, like our old house, needs constant attention, and upkeep to keep it in good shape. Much like an abandoned house looks unloved and forlorn, so a marriage falls apart if it’s not given TLC. It is very easy, especially when you have young children and jobs, to not give it the maintenance it deserves, but it will be alright, as long as the foundation is secure; there will be plenty of time in the future to rebuild, stronger and more beautiful than before. But, if the foundation is neglected to the point that it crumbles and breaks, it might be all but impossible to repair it. Don’t let that happen. Don’t take it for granted, and not invest even the smallest amount of kindness, thoughtfulness and appreciation to your partner. Because that’s what they are, your partner; no one gets you like they do, and no one will love your children like they do. At times, over a period of 28 years, we have let things go, but always in the nick of time, something wakes us up and makes us rebuild. We are a little older and wiser now, but still we need to invest in renovations, not for resale value. or even curb appeal, but just to continue to enjoy living in this beautiful institution of marriage.

That’s it for this year’s edition of “Marriage advice from a middle-aged woman,” Stay tuned, I’ll re-post this next year, hopefully with more reasons.