HAPPILY EVER AFTER

The big question is who does the dishes?  If he has a heavy work schedule I do them, if I am tired he does them.  Sometimes we both feel good or are both tired so we do them together and chat while we do them.  He usually takes the garbage cans out on Tuesday nights but when he is coming home late from work or I know he has had a bad day I try to do it before he gets home.  He is very neat.  His den is in tip top shape, nothing out of place.  I’m the pile person (every house needs one).  I leave piles all over the house.  I’m sure the piles drive him crazy but he never complains about them because he knows that is just me.  Sometimes if I want to surprise him I go through all my piles and put them away.  He always notices and appreciates my efforts but also knows the piles will return and he’s ok with that.  He does the yard work and I buy the groceries.  I cook and he does the laundry.  He has been doing the laundry since our third son was born.  Sometimes I do a load just to show him I am still capable.  He teases me about not being the perfect housewife he was expecting 40 years ago when he married me.

Every morning we greet each other with a kiss and every night we say good night with a kiss.  I don’t complain about his snoring because I know there is nothing he can do about it.  He doesn’t complain about my flatulence which has increased exponentially the past two years because he knows there is nothing I can do about it.  We take care of ourselves, we both shower daily, I pluck my chin hairs and he trims his ear hairs.  We try to look nice for each other even as we ourselves are having difficulty accepting our aging bodies. 

When the boys were little we agreed on how to raise them and if we didn’t we discussed it in private, not in front of the boys so we could provide a united front.  He agreed to not buy a Nintendo for the boys and I didn’t give him a hard time about renting a Nintendo whenever I was out of town.  We compromise on what TV show to watch, what movie to see, what restaurants to frequent, where to go on vacation.   If we disagree on a political issue we hear each other out and then agree to disagree. Middle course, middle ground, happy medium - compromise.  We choose our battles wisely.

We tried to give each other a break from the noise and chaos of our young family.  When he needed to get away for an evening, he took it.  When I needed to get away for an evening, I took it.  It didn’t matter that I had just gone out with friends two nights before.  We didn’t keep score.  He knew that I would only leave him with the kids if I needed to leave him with the kids and I knew it was the same for him.  We both needed time away from the responsibilities of the family and we didn’t make the other feel guilty about it.   Neither of us played the martyr. 

We never question each others’ expenditures.  We both know what our financial goals are and trust each other to remember those goals when spending money.  We know not to discuss finances if either one of us is already stressed or tired.

We don’t get angry when the other makes a bad mistake.  We just try to help them fix it.  Then we conveniently forget that they ever made the mistake in the first place.  

We take care of each other when we are sick even though I accidentally left that out of my marriage vows on the day we married. (forgot to say “in sickness and in health”)  We make each other tea or run to the store for ginger ale and crackers.  We sympathize and empathize and make certain the sick person feels cared for.  

We don’t tell each other how to dress or how to act or try to make each other into someone they are not.  I have quit sighing when he puts ketchup on everything and he doesn’t even question my often outlandish ideas about my next weird project.  

We try to be fun to live with.   We have a very realistic looking stuffed dog that we leave in unexpected places around the house to hopefully startle the other person just for the fun of it.   We get into deep discussions about our secret vice, the show “Survivor”.  I tease him about how many trips he makes to Home Depot for one home improvement project and he teases me about spreading my work across the ten foot kitchen table even though I have a den with a nice desk.  When we are making the bed together we can’t resist throwing a few pillows at each other.  

We pay attention to each other when we are complaining about work even when it is the same thing we have heard for the past two weeks.  We read each others’ moods and know that timing is everything.  When we do go through a difficult time in our marriage we recognize that it is usually because one of us is particularly stressed or exhausted and we don’t take it personally.  We have a strong commitment to the marriage so that on those days that we don’t particularly like the other person we stick around until we like them again because we always do.  

We show pride in each other.  I’m very proud of how successful he is in his work, how he worked from being a wedding photographer from Toledo, Ohio to being top in his field and a legend in a company for which he has worked for 36 years.  I’m proud of the father that he was and still is to our four sons.  He is proud of how I have mothered our four sons and made a home for our family.  He is proud of my career as a nurse and that I can deal with life and death issues when he cannot.  We let other people know how much we admire the other.  We remind each other of how much we have accomplished in our lives as a team, how much we have followed our dreams and our vision for the life we wanted to have.  And when we have stumbling blocks along the way we remind each other of other difficulties we have gotten through and that we will work through these too.  

Neither of us has the fantasy that we are easy to live with and we both appreciate what the other has to put up with to live with us.  We both know that the other person is the best thing that ever happened to us and we will never forget that. 

And that’s how you stay happily married.