This Is What 34 Years Of Marriage Really Looks Like
This morning, before leaving for work, Bill folded the laundry and emptied the dishwasher, and I couldn’t be happier.
Apparently, that’s where the bar is set after you spend over half your life with the same person. My gosh, we’ve been a couple for 34 years! The fact that we’ve been together that long is mind-boggling before I even start considering everything we’ve experienced over the last three decades.
But before we get into that, let’s ponder the weirdness of marriage. When I was a newlywed, I naively thought “being married” would be like getting into an airplane together with a vague but beautiful destination in mind - like a gorgeous beach - where you’d live happily ever after. Instead, it’s like you end up hanging by a thread on a rocky, snowy mountain full of surprises - a lot of them shitty - wondering what the hell you’re doing.
In other words, marriage is a very complicated landscape.
Making things thornier is how Bill and I are contrasting people in every way possible. Bill prefers to live in the moment, freely spending money, while I would rather save, live small, plan, and organize.
He’s tall. I’m short. He’ll eat anything. I’m picky. He falls asleep instantly anywhere, while I need to rearrange the furniture into the proper feng shui, turn on a white noise machine, have a cooling pillow and weighted blanket arranged just so, and set the thermostat to precisely 70 degrees before sliding into bed. (Being married to me is awesome and not at all tedious.)
We are similar in many ways, though. We both snore, we both agree Bill can make a better potato pancake, and we both say, “Jesus Christ! Stop already!” when the other sneezes more than three times in a row.
We both also get on each other’s nerves. Bill likes to “help” me cook dinner by wandering around the kitchen and standing in front of whatever drawer I need to get into. I tolerate a lot of dumb jokes. (Whoever told my husband he was funny in 8th grade, come here. I need to talk to you because he’s been recycling the same jokes since puberty.)
Sometimes, I swear to God, he likes to keep me guessing by walking around the house with a ladder and hammer but not actually doing anything.
I occasionally get mad about dumb shit and have been known to resort to childish retaliation. After Bill accidentally shrunk my favorite sweater, I made a point to leave the dresser drawers half-open because it was only fair we both suffered. Before you mock, know this: Bill repeatedly left one second on the microwave about 205584930 times just to get me back.
Of course, there are perks to being married this long. You know each other’s secret language and strengths. When I say, “I want a cookie…” my man knows that bringing me less than three cookies would be a gross miscalculation on his part. Meanwhile, I know when we go on a long road trip, I’m in charge of making sure he has the right snacks (a bag of plastic-y chocolate Donettes, a crate of Chex mix, and Pepsi that must be in cans) because Bill will be too busy “driving straight through” and “beating the GPS time” to stop so we can eat.
Seriously, we’ve been in the fire a few times over the years. I don’t mean a cozy, comfortable campfire. I mean a scorching inferno where emotions are HOT. So hot that - and I’m going to be very honest - there were times our marriage felt like rubble and ashes. Sometimes, I’m amazed that it’s survived so many trips into the burn.
But here we are. We work hard to keep things fun and spicy! When we’re feeling daring, and we really want to test our limits, we switch places on the couch in the evening or head to Costco for a Friday night shopping spree/date night - bet you’re jealous - and after three decades together, Bill still can’t take his eyes off me when I back the car the driveway…because he’s afraid I might hit his car on the way out.
That is what 34 years of marriage looks like.
PS - If you missed the post about how a psychic accurately predicted our meeting and marriage, you can read about it here.
