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Marriage when I was single( or as I like to call it "Fantasy Island" because I had no damn clue!):
I would have a bad day at work, come home, get a hug from my husband and a foot rub. He would tell me everything was going to be okay, really all I want to hear ever. We would have a glass of wine, a salad, and some yummy pasta and curl up on the sofa and watch TV. We would do the dishes together, go to bed and spoon all night long. The next morning he would take out the trash (something I can't stand doing) and we would happily go off to work after kissing each other goodbye, blissfully thinking how lucky we were to have each other and always have someone who has the other person's back.
Reality:
His day is just as shitty as mine or worse. He drinks beer not wine so we never share a glass of anything but water. He hates my pasta. The man has the strongest hands on the planet earth and no clue how strong they are so the minute he starts "rubbing" my feet, I yell out in pain. He thinks this is just him, releasing the tension. I on the other hand, want the kind of foot rub I can only get by paying some little old woman at a spa to give me. Spooning? Are you kidding. I am always cold and he is always hot. I sleep on the wrong side of the bed to spoon him and see the TV and his body is always sore from years of lifting AC units in and out of vans and onto buildings. The man can't just sit and watch TV. He can't be quiet and he can't stop worrying. He worries at least as much as I do. We do actually kiss each other goodbye in the morning but that is about the only thing that actually is the same as my fantasy marriage.
Obviously my marriage is mine but here are some funny things I found out about living with someone that I had no idea about before I got married and no, having a roommate is not the same thing unless you all share a bed and that isn't a roommate, that is a significant other.
1. When he is awake the world is awake:
I don't know how or why but my husband's insomnia has become mine and it doesn't work in reverse half as often for some reason. He doesn't mean to wake me...okay, sometimes I am pretty sure he does. My friend Katie told me before I got married to enjoy my last nights in bed alone because I would miss them. It isn't that sharing a bed is hard, if you have a King size bed, it is that there are 20 things that you do in the middle of the night that wake each other up...unless drugs are involved. Every time he gets up to get a midnight (2 AM) snack or whenever I have to potty. (Just an aside here, he is way grumpier when I awaken him by mistake than I am!) The other night when the police and EMS were out in front of our house because of the accident next door, I had just nodded back off (after the dogs woke me up) when he woke up for a snack and came running in to tell me....the police and EMS were outside. "Yes, dear I know", I mumbled sleepily and then ended up getting up to show him the truck that careened into the building.
2. Opposites really do attract and it screws up my cooking.
He is salty and I am sweet and I am not just talking about our personalities. He loves his food super salty and I am kind of sensitive to salt. Meanwhile, I like things like Sesame Chicken and a little bit of sugar in my pasta sauce to cut the acidity of tomatoes. He can not stand sweet and meat. This has meant that I have had to learn to not add sugar to my pasta sauce (it just isn't as good) and he has had to learn to put half the salt when he cooks and add more later. SIGH, if only I had married a sweet man!
He is salty and I am sweet and I am not just talking about our personalities. He loves his food super salty and I am kind of sensitive to salt. Meanwhile, I like things like Sesame Chicken and a little bit of sugar in my pasta sauce to cut the acidity of tomatoes. He can not stand sweet and meat. This has meant that I have had to learn to not add sugar to my pasta sauce (it just isn't as good) and he has had to learn to put half the salt when he cooks and add more later. SIGH, if only I had married a sweet man!
3. It will never be quiet again.
My goodness how I long for a weekend curled up in bed without 30 things to do so I can surf Lifetime Christmas movies, watch HGTV, and read a book. My husband on the other hand lives by the idle hands is the work of the devil philosophy of life so he makes work where thereisn't might not be any. Plus, try reading a book while he is watching TV and you get the non-stop "Look, no just look!"...at the play of a football game I don't care about or some news on CNN or God forbid, someone being torn limb from limb on The Bastard Executioner, a show he is torn up about being cancelled or someone being shot on Fargo, a show I am despondent over being renewed.
My goodness how I long for a weekend curled up in bed without 30 things to do so I can surf Lifetime Christmas movies, watch HGTV, and read a book. My husband on the other hand lives by the idle hands is the work of the devil philosophy of life so he makes work where there
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4. Your way isn't necessarily right or wrong.
We do things differently. Hubs, by the nature of his work, is a start a project and work until it is done kind of person. I am, on the other hand, by the nature of mine, a start a project and work until I can let it sit for a minute to start another. I have to be able to fly by the seat of my pants in my work and have 5 fires to put out at one time. I can't concentrate unless I am thinking about 7 things at once. We don't process things the same and we don't approach them that way but we both get them done, I just may not finish them as quickly as he likes or the way he would. :)
We do things differently. Hubs, by the nature of his work, is a start a project and work until it is done kind of person. I am, on the other hand, by the nature of mine, a start a project and work until I can let it sit for a minute to start another. I have to be able to fly by the seat of my pants in my work and have 5 fires to put out at one time. I can't concentrate unless I am thinking about 7 things at once. We don't process things the same and we don't approach them that way but we both get them done, I just may not finish them as quickly as he likes or the way he would. :)
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5. Laugh it off.
He's stupid and I'm crazy but we can laugh it off 99% of the time and it just doesn't matter. I told him this morning that I love him because he always makes me laugh. That isn't far from the truth. I am way too serious and not half as fun as he is. He is the life of the party, any party. I tend to be a little shy around people I don't know but I am a sarcastic witch too. We compliment each other but drive each other crazy. Laughing at him is the easiest way to diffuse my temper and he knows it.
He's stupid and I'm crazy but we can laugh it off 99% of the time and it just doesn't matter. I told him this morning that I love him because he always makes me laugh. That isn't far from the truth. I am way too serious and not half as fun as he is. He is the life of the party, any party. I tend to be a little shy around people I don't know but I am a sarcastic witch too. We compliment each other but drive each other crazy. Laughing at him is the easiest way to diffuse my temper and he knows it.
6. Learn to appreciate 'man humor':
Seriously, I have no idea what it is about men and passing gas but they not only make a hobby out of it, they can spend hours laughing at each other doing it. My friend Rachel said to me what she really loves about her new husband is that he can bond with her son over guy things like farting, something she can't really share. Why? Because ladies, we simply don't have the fart funny gene. We don't get it, and that's just fine by me. Until my husband came into my life, I had never seen a farting contest, something I would happily forgo smelling ever again. Men amuse themselves and their friends with bodily functions. The one thing I have learned from camping with my husband and his friends is that nothing is off limits with men and bodily functions except talking sex and your spouse. Poop stories abound. They will talk about sex only with their friends if the woman means nothing. Oh, but they think we talk about it with our friends, ALL the time. Like we get together at On The Boarder, order a margarita, and then start comparing notes about our husband's prowess in the bedroom. (This is the male version of Fantasy Island, BTW, a bunch of women sitting around a table talking about how great they all are in bed!). I laugh. Honestly men, if we do talk about you, we are way more likely to be laughing at stupid things you do than how great you are in bed. I mean, you are all fantastic in bed so that conversation would get really boring fast. Now the stupid stuff...that is funny shit!
7. Women are not the only ones who nag.
Seriously, I have no idea what it is about men and passing gas but they not only make a hobby out of it, they can spend hours laughing at each other doing it. My friend Rachel said to me what she really loves about her new husband is that he can bond with her son over guy things like farting, something she can't really share. Why? Because ladies, we simply don't have the fart funny gene. We don't get it, and that's just fine by me. Until my husband came into my life, I had never seen a farting contest, something I would happily forgo smelling ever again. Men amuse themselves and their friends with bodily functions. The one thing I have learned from camping with my husband and his friends is that nothing is off limits with men and bodily functions except talking sex and your spouse. Poop stories abound. They will talk about sex only with their friends if the woman means nothing. Oh, but they think we talk about it with our friends, ALL the time. Like we get together at On The Boarder, order a margarita, and then start comparing notes about our husband's prowess in the bedroom. (This is the male version of Fantasy Island, BTW, a bunch of women sitting around a table talking about how great they all are in bed!). I laugh. Honestly men, if we do talk about you, we are way more likely to be laughing at stupid things you do than how great you are in bed. I mean, you are all fantastic in bed so that conversation would get really boring fast. Now the stupid stuff...that is funny shit!
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This is true. My husband can nag about the leftovers we both forgot to throw away, the fact that we are wasting food (a lot less now that the chickens will eat just about anything still edible in the fridge and I compost most of the rest). His latest nag is my bedside nightstand. He says I am playing JANGA. I am going to clean it this weekend, without him knowing, because the man really won't stop teasing me until I do. I also need to organize my cloths again. I am kind of a shove everything in the closet kind of girl. When I can't find 3 pair of pants, I clean and reorganize. It has been 2 months so I have to do it because, I can't find my pants! The worst nagging I get is my driving. It isn't that my driving is that bad, it is that he thinks his is so much better. He drives a lot for a living so he hates driving on the weekends, meaning I get the honor of doing most of it and listening to him tell me how to do it right. Never mind the fact that I drive 5 days a week, 60 miles a day, without his help. He is there to order, nag, support me when he is the passenger and oh, how I love it. (Why hasn't someone invented a sarcasm font? Seriously, someone needs to create a font called "sarcasm" so we can just use it when we are being a smart ass!)
8. TV changes:
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This is one of the sorriest facts of a marriage. I am forced, stuck enjoying a larger variety of football games I couldn't care less about and some TV shows that are just too man like for words. He is learning to put up with Notre Dame football and HGTV...okay he really isn't learning to put up with my HGTV habit, I just watch when he isn't around, but he knows the shows are taped and I will watch. The other night after 3 hours of CNN and all the terrorism stories had become more than either of us could handle, he looked at me and said "Find anything to watch, even your stupid decorating shows. I can't take anything more." CNN is our go to channel and I never watched the news before my husband. I have it on now all the time. I don't know why. It is depressing but I can't stop learning the stuff and laughing at all the stupid things Donald Trump says...or the fact that there are people actually voting for that idiot, but that is another blog...that I won't write.
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I am lucky that my husband actually does so much around the house...and I know it. He does the laundry about 95% of the time. He helps with the dishes a lot and he takes out almost all of the trash. If I really want him to cook, he will and he does all the grilling. On the other hand, he hasn't met the broom or vacuum in 2 years. I doubt a toilet would get scrubbed ever, without me. It amazes me how nobody but me can see the fingerprints covering the fridge, dishwasher and oven door and the microwave cabinet and doors to the laundry room would absolutely never be closed if I went missing. Still, if you can find a man willing to help and you are not afraid to get on the back of the riding lawnmower and cut the 1.2 acres yourself once in a while, you will do okay.
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He knows when I am about to start my cycle before I do. Apparently, I get migraines right around that time of the month. I never figured it out but he nailed it right away. I know what is hurting on him and the sore spots to rub on his back like magic. I don't know how I know or why, or maybe it is just because of the physical nature of his work, everything is sore, but I always hit the spots that are the most sore. It is like some weird connection you have with your dog or your spouse. You know how you can tell your dog just isn't feeling good even though they can't talk? They aren't acting right. Exactly the same with your spouse.
Honestly, marriage is funny. My husband is my absolute best friend. If I could tell my single self or anyone else who isn't married one bit of advice it would be "Marry your best friend. The person that makes you laugh when you want to cry. The person who tells you fart jokes to try and make the ugly stuff disappear. When you find the person you can love and hate all at the same time and still not want to leave, that is the person you marry." They may not be the best looking person you ever dated and they may not live the life of your fantasy. They may not have that dream of seeing a baseball game in every major league park the way you do or going to spring training. That's okay. Those things aren't half as important as being able to laugh at each other and everyone else you know too. That is what makes life fun.