Lessons Learned From Being Married 28 Years OR What? It Can't Be That Long! OR Oh Eff, Do I Have to Buy Another Anniversary Gift?

Recently I read a story about a woman who has recently celebrated her 18th year of marriage with her husband.  So, happily, she shared her 'success' hints with the rest of us.  This, of course, spurred me into coming up with what I've learned in 28 years of marriage.  (Hang on, this ride is about to start.  Keep your hands inside the interior and remember, I do it because I think it's funny.  Also I've never actually tortured HIM, the man to whom I've been married for almost 28 years.  You can ask HIM.)  (HIM just responded to the latter statement: "You did torture me.  There was the time you went through a vegetarian stage and made cheese onion soup that was completely disgusting.  That was torture."  My response: "Nobody made you eat it.")

Lesson #1: Never get married after knowing each other precisely five weeks after meeting each other scrubbing hallways while enlisted in the US Army and you're only 19 and 20 years old respectively.  (It doesn't happen much, but when it does, don't do it.)  (Hey, it worked for us, but I should have bought a lottery ticket that day, too.  Oh, wait.  They didn't have the lotto in Texas then.  Damn.)

As a writer I often say that you can't make up the stuff that
happens in real life.  You can't.

Lesson #2: Don't argue about small stuff. No one really should care if the toothpaste tube is squeezed in the middle. Here's what we did. We got a toothpaste dispenser that wasn't squeezable. That worked until we decided we should each have our own toothpaste tubes and the other one could just go to hell.  Amazingly this technique worked well with many things in our marriage.  Go figure.

Lesson #3: Talk about money and kids and stuff before saying, "I do."  We sort of lucked out in that we agreed on some stuff but HIM initially had the idea that I would spend all of my income on rent, groceries, and cars, whilst HIM would spend his on beer.  Hahaha.  No.  That was our first argument in a grocery store.  Great fun.  ("I don't like Hamburger Helper!"  "Well, I do and you're a total jerkface."  "I still don't like it."  "Great.  You cook."  "I'm going back to the barracks."  "Great, jerkface.")  (Good times.)

Lesson #4: Always warn your significant other about your relatives especially since your significant other hasn't met your relatives before the wedding.  (I had to endure many snide remarks about being pregnant as a reason for our hasty marriage.  (Pregnant was the nice way to say it when in actuality 'knocked up' was the least objectionable way that it was phrased.)  I certainly proved them wrong since we didn't have a child until 20 YEARS later.  There.  Showed them.)  Although you're married to the person, his or her family comes pre-attached in cement.  Really.

Lesson #4 rephrased: Meet your in-laws before it's too late.  Dumbass.

Lesson #5: Don't fart in bed and then pull the covers over your spouse's head.  I'm not saying this happened.  I'm saying don't do it.

Oh, you've done it.  Don't lie.

Lesson #6: Your spouse is not going to look like Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie after twenty or so years.  Brangelina has surgeons, trainers, dietitians, people who slap their hands, publicists and someone with a voodoo doll.  If you saw them in person you would understand that Hollywood glamour is really Hollywood glamour.  Don't be fooled.  Life is real.

Lesson #7: Oh, go ahead and fart in bed and then pull the covers over your spouse's head.  It might be funny.

Lesson #8: Don't have your first child at 40.  (We didn't have a choice and I wouldn't change it for anything, but OMG, I'm pretty sure it would have been different at 30.)  But if you can don't have your first one at 18 either.  Sure when you're 38, it's all good, but what do you do in the meantime?  30's just right.  You get to have fun, then have children and have some different kind of fun, and then work your way into grandparenthood.  (Where am I going with this?  I don't know.  I lost my train of thought.)

Lesson #9: Eat broccoli and popcorn and then go fart in bed.  After 28 years of marriage, it's definitely funny.  Gross, but funny.

Lesson #10: Tell that person you appreciate them.  (I know, it's mushy.)

Hey, you, HIM, the man to whom I've been married for 28 years, you're still a hunka-hunka-burning love.

I love my autosketch program.