Evagation

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Surprisingly thrilled to be married.

Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows that I have always said that I would NEVER get married. I even told my husband this after we had been dating for a while, that I never, EVER wanted to get married. Who needs a religious official and a piece of paper to tell them that their relationship is forever? Not me! But did you know that you get a major tax break if you're married? I know, that's not a great reason to get married but it really is a significant amount of money that you get from the tax-man just for making your relationship legal. There's also married sex. I know, married sex isn't anywhere near as fun as un-married sex but there are some advantages. (I'm trying to think of the advantages. This might take me the next hour, or so, but I'll come up with something, dammit!) Got it. Usually, if you're married, it's just you and your husband in the house. So, you can have sex anywhere you want. (Although, come to think of it... HA!... we used to have sex wherever the hell we wanted to long before we got married.) Okay. So maybe there isn't the advantage of married sex. We fight less now that we're married. Which is not to say that we are always in agreement (something that will never happen), or never have arguments (I. Am. Always. Right. Goddammit.) but we no longer have those screaming matches that end with one person stomping out on the other person. To put it simply: The stakes are higher now. While I never wanted to get married, now that I am, I take it quite seriously. I am going to grow old with this man, and that's all there is to it. After we first got married, we both had lists of what would be considered "deal-breakers" of the marriage. At first we pretty much had only one deal-breaker: No cheating. Over the early months of our marriage, we slowly began adding more and more deal-breakers to the list. To the point where it had just gotten stupid. And we had started invoking the "D" word, saying that something would be grounds for divorce. Since you all are probably MUCH smarter than I am when it comes to inter-personal relationships, you probably know that we were heading down a very dark, depressing road. Which was why I finally put my foot down and said that we are not EVER again going to invoke the "D" word. Because why the hell did we get married then in the first place? Wasn't that supposed to be the whole point of getting married? That we were now stuck with each other for the rest of our lives? Once we got out of that immature mentality, the screaming fights just... stopped. Honestly. Now that the fights were no longer devolving into "Well, if I'm so horrible, why don't you just DIVORCE ME, THEN?" we began to act like adults, and our arguments got resolved. Your grandparents weren't lying when they said that any good marriage involves a LOT of compromise. That's why our, "Well, why don't you just DIVORCE ME, THEN?" fights got us nowhere. It was either my way, his way, or we would have to part ways. Yes, we realize now that we were stupid. (Although, for the record, cheating is still a deal-breaker for both of us. But that's our ONLY deal-breaker.) Fighting that way made our marriage seem temporary. It kept us both from reveling in the fact that hey! we never have to go on another first date again, EVER! Now that we argue like adults, we've started to settle into this marriage. Which is when the marriage started to pay off. Even though we've been living together for four years, we never got completely comfortable with just being ourselves around each other. We were both still trying to show the other person only the good things, and not the strange quirky things. (And you are nuts if you think I'm going to detail those strange, quirky things. It's nothing outrageous like a third boob, or something, it's just... okay, ONE THING. I still sleep with this security blanket thing called "Conkie." When we first started living together, I tried to sleep without Conkie. Except I seriously couldn't fall asleep without it. So, I would hide it in my pillow-case because I didn't want Devin to know that I'm a 25 year-old woman with a freakin' security blanket. Once we were married, though, I finally told him about Conkie. And yes, he teased me about it but in a very nice way, the nice way you all are going to tease me about it, I hope.) (See? None of these quirks were earth-shattering. And I don't know why it's called "Conkie." My Dad named it that when I was a baby. And no, it's not the original Conkie. That Conkie got lost in Sears when I was five and my Mom would gladly tell you the story about Katie throwing the world's biggest hissy-fit in the parking lot of Sears upon learning that Conkie had been lost. After that, my parents stocked up on Conkies. The current Conkie is really just a patch of flannel. I run it through my fingers while I fall asleep.) (I seriously cannot believe that I just told the internet about my Conkie. Right after posting about how the internet can hate on me all it wants. I must have taken stupid pills this morning.) Back to the matter at hand, though. While Devin might have given me some good natured ribbing about my many quirks (and I certainly returned the favor about his), it actually brought us closer together. After the horrible fights, with both of us blasting each other with conditions that must be met in order for this marriage to work, it felt SO GOOD to learn that there are actually no conditions to our love. In fact, once we started opening up about our inherent quirkiness, we both realized that hey, those are just a few more reasons why we love each other. You would think that we would love each other despite those quirks (that we would merely accept, or tolerate them) but it turned out that we even love each other's quirks! Who knew? And that is why I'm surprisingly thrilled to be married. I knew going into it that Devin was a great guy. I simply didn't realize that it could be so wonderful. To be able to share your life with someone who loves every. little. thing. about. you. Someone who washed my hair for me after my eye surgery because I couldn't get my eye wet, so it took some fancy maneuvering on Devin's part. Someone who doesn't mind sharing the bed with Conkie. Someone who just laughs and shakes his head when I talk about "basketball fields" and "baseball courts." Someone to clean up after I've been sick, and to be there when I come out of surgery. I didn't know it would be this huge. That I would end up feeling SO MUCH for another person. That just thinking of a life without him could make me feel so sad. And I never, EVER thought that I would even consider having children. And now we're talking with doctors about doing just that. At first, it was something I agreed to because it was so important to Devin and now... well, I realize that I think I do want that little piece of the both of us. That little transparent ghost baby. Because I love him a little more, each day. It's as if my love for Devin is this huge reservoir inside of me that has no boundaries. Just when I start thinking, "Okay, that's it, I'm full up on love for Devin, I can't fit any more," he serenades me with "Endless Love" at a karaoke party and I realize that he is going to give me hundreds more reasons to love him as we grow old together. I can't wait.

Posted by Katie. on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 3:07 PM | Permalink | 1 comments | links to this post   

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