Once again I’m having problems with spacing between paragraphs. I’ve been fooling with this long enough. I’m publishing it anyway. Apologies if it’s hard to read.
Sunday June 21st is our anniversary. That day will be 30 years since we met and 23 years since we became husband and wife. I’m not a bit surprised that we’re still together. We both made up our minds long ago that “’til death do us part” was the only way for us. I do think it’s that simple to stay together. Just making up your mind, not quitting or giving up when things get hard. And they will get hard.
Things that used to bother me about Greg no longer do. Or else I’ve just mellowed or learned to accept them. Other things will always bother me about him. I’m sure he could say the same thing about me. Overall, Greg has been a wonderful husband. There are things that have happened that no doubt would have made others throw in the towel and leave. The people who say they would “never put up with” things from a spouse are single for a reason. The people I know who aren’t married will often say they are happy to be alone. I can see how that could be true. However, most of them are desperately lonely. To the point of being willing to date a married man or just lamenting how they’ll end up alone in a house full of cats. The reason people never marry is because they don’t want to have to compromise or give in to someone else. They don’t want to have to put someone else’s needs ahead of their own on a regular basis. I don’t blame them but they have to realize that is what marriage is. The only way you can do everything you want all the time and be married is if you have one of those marriages where you both do your own thing. You don’t eat meals together, the guy goes out with the boys and you spend evenings with the girls. You take separate vacations, shop apart and never talk face to face. That to me is not a marriage.
My hubby and I do as much together as possible. We always have. We enjoy each other’s company to the fullest and are best friends. We like most of the same things with only occasional differences. We still have conflicts. Some have been the same ones from 30 years ago that never get resolved. We both have different ways of doing things and must look the other way when one of us does things the other wouldn’t do. We each have different priorities but respect what’s important to the other person.
I know we’ve both made sacrifices for our marriage. My biggest was giving up my postal job and moving here almost 20 years ago. Right before we moved, I was probably the happiest I’ve ever been. My job was high paying and it gave me whatever self esteem I’ve had in my life. I felt like I could hold my head high. My hubby picked out this house and we bought it without me ever seeing it. That’s how much trust and faith I placed in him. I could be bitter about all the faults this house has and how he said “you can pick out the next one” when I have a feeling this will be the last place I ever live. Instead, I am thankful that we found a nice house in a wonderful neighborhood. That I have grown to love this house (not counting the basement that floods) and have made it my own by decorating in a quirky fashion. Even if it’s small, it’s big enough to hold the love we have for our little family.
One of the nicest things my hubby has done is buy me tampons at Walgreens. When I got my period unexpectedly after a month without (hoping for menopause), he volunteered to get them. That’s huge for a man but I guess after buying adult diapers and incontinence pads for my mom, it’s not that much of a stretch.
I’m always proud to be with him. I love watching him talk to others. Sometimes when we are walking the dogs and meet someone, he is talking and I forget to join in. Mostly because I’m in awe at his way with people. I can talk to just about anyone too but he does it differently. He has patience with strangers that he doesn’t have with me.
One of the most wonderful things he’s done for me was making a screensaver many years ago. I would say around 1998 or so we had a computer that came with a program to make a screensaver. You could put a bunch of pictures together and put music to it and it would play when ever someone wasn’t on the computer. He made one with my favorite actors from Sunset Beach (a now defunct soap opera) and put it to my fave song at the time, “Walking On The Sun” by Smash Mouth. To this day, every time I hear that song, I smile and it makes me so happy to remember what he did. I wish I still had it but the computer died within a year or so and I lost it forever.
A lot of people would write a blog post TO their spouse in the form of a letter. I will never do that. Mine doesn’t like cards and I know he wouldn’t want a blog post. I know he won’t read this. In some ways I wonder why he doesn’t want to read my blog posts but on the other hand, I’m fine with it. He shuns social media. I love social media but have almost completely withdrawn from it. My reasons are more out of insecurity. I have that nagging voice always telling me awful things. I’ve told Greg this and he acts like I told him “I hear voices”. Oy. Just the doubting one that follows me everywhere and beats me down whenever possible. Such as: Who would want to read about that? You better not tweet, people find you boring. If you post your pictures, it will look like you’re bragging. Logically, I know none of what the voice says makes sense but it still seems to have more weight than my own original voice.
Well, this is sad. I wanted to write a post about marriage and us as a couple and it’s now been taken over by my insecurites. We won’t celebrate in the traditional sense. No going out to dinner for us or buying cards or gifts for one another. We celebrate our love every single day. It may sound corny but it’s not the milestones that matter, it is the every day. The daily grind and routine that you resent and yet cling to. We’ll have a couple highballs tonight to start the weekend off. Then eat some good home cooked food and watch some Netflix. Right now we’re watching the tv series “Glee” from the very beginning. We didn’t start watching until at least the 3rd season. We’ll talk about our vacation which is coming up in a week and we haven’t made the final decision where to go. We’ll hug and kiss and hold and pet the dogs. We are blessed even if I can’t put it into words.
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