Long Haul Marriage

This much I know for sure. Neither one of us is going anywhere. For 25 + years hand in hand, tide after tide, we’ve tried to change each other, hoping to find a way to wish each other into a human we know would be perfect--for their sake of course.

Across a well worn pattern and several iterations of the same arguments we come to over again, they seem to boil down to this. What’s for dinner? Why can’t you put things back where I want them? Stop the obsessive charting! Just tell me when to pack and hear what I’m saying, I’ll go everywhere as long as our family is there. Hello? Hello? Are you listening?

For his part, he does understand that despite my good intentions, I’ll agree to take care of everything, but he’ll have to finish it up. And historically, when an opportunity to avoid making money at the thing I love has come by, I’ve hopped that pony and hit the trails. It’s cost him endless routers and first class accommodations, but he never complained, only supported. He is a better person than me.

He promised to take care of the cars, and even if I feign frustration, I know that was a lusty vow he made to a twenty something year old with a perky, knowing smile and generous hips. Not me, an aging, if handsome woman, perfectly capable of seeing to all sorts of registration herself.

I wanted him to discipline the kids and he couldn’t, but neither could I. And our children figured us out, disciplined themselves, turning into the same type of overachieving and caring people we are, not because they are desperate to be loved but because they are swimming in an endless pool of it. 

We hunkered into a cloud of soft feeling, both for each other and our boys. I wanted to be everything for all of them, until I became nothing for myself. I perched atop quicksand to see how far I would allow myself to sink before anyone might notice. 

I wanted to be heard, and mistook his asking my opinion for one he might follow. In a brief, suspense-filled moment, his lack of ability to hear me and change almost broke us, but instead we poured a concrete pavement we could stand on together, and with understanding and some flexibility, it’s held nicely. His oaken branches providing shelter from all sorts of storms, especially since I refuse the comfort of an umbrella.

The children grew up at a glacially breakneck pace. After graduation, my husband and I sat across from each other again, every annoying thing now potentially actionable.

But there are so many bonds that keep us together. We have a quarter of a century of living we’ve shared, of loss we’ve cried through, of disappointment and phenomenally wonderful triumphs. We’ve argued through airports, missed turns and poorly vetted meals all over the world. He made me a wife and then a mother and he cried with me as I became a caretaker and then an orphan.

There were times our commitment felt like a death sentence, but it’s really just been a long, vigorous ballroom dance and a matter of finding the workable shoes. Which change over time.

There is wider understanding and merciful acceptance, evermore appreciation for each other’s strengths as the blip of our time on this continuum slips relentlessly beyond opportunity. Blessed with two lifetimes together so far, there is no reason to stop now as we round the third. 

With a home filled with love, animals, friends and family, he takes out his magic barbecuing skills and I get to watch even more people appreciate him, not just for his smiling, intelligent humor, but for his perfectly done salmon. I get to bask in the glow of his beaming smile when the Internet satellite is properly firing past the one they try to force on you.

I have added a cast of characters to our lives, been a loving friend and voice, a permanent member of this sweet, brilliant, deadpan funny man’s fan club. No one can be everything, though we’ve both tried and been a lot. His quiet, steady, sometimes wildly unreasonable voice is still whispering in my ear. Almost as long as my parents’ got to.

Aren’t most long term relationships like this? Beyond the fighting, and after the obligatory bickering. The things we could change, we did years ago, otherwise we’ve accepted each other, or made the accommodation, even if grudgingly. It’s enough for me to bring a bowl of grapes to his office when I’m getting myself one, or to pick up the strawberry milk at the market he shouldn’t be drinking and pour into a glass so he doesn’t know it’s the one that’s low fat.

Our marriage has lasted in no small part, because we have kept it a contest of who could out nice the other. The reason it’s worked and I’m still in it for the long haul is, he wins. Hands down.