I must pay tribute to my husband's parents, Rich and Colleen, for today is their 40th wedding anniversary. Holy crap, does anybody do anything for 40 years?! That's a long time, they are an amazing couple and a great example to all the young married people.
I like their approach, it doesn't matter, we are sticking together. When Paul and I first got married I set small goals, just make it to our 1 year mark. In our first year a lot happened but one of my favorite memories is we were sleeping on the floor (hey we were 19, we did stupid stuff) and I woke up in the night to see Paul facing me (eyes closed). Then he head butted me like a soccer ball. I was like, "OW, what the...?" Kind of scary to sleep by him after that.
So we made it through the first year, now let's just get to 5 years. I've always heard the first five years are the hardest because that's where you are learning about each other and all the quirks. I think that's true. One day in our early years Paul says, "Hey Sarah, the toilet paper needs to go a certain way. Let me show you." In disbelief I followed him to the bathroom where he proceeded to show me that it needs to fall over. (My mind was like, BLANK! Cause I was laughing at him.) Apparently it can bother some people if the tp isn't flowing a certain way.
My next goal was dumb, I admit, it was 7 years, because of that movie, The 7 Year Itch. I've never seen it, but it made for a short term goal. I said to Paul, If we can just make it to seven years it will be smooth sailing! How young and idealistic I sounded. Because in year 6 we had our boy, Travis, and life became a whole new ball game. We followed him up with Peyton and Izzy, in years 8 and 11.
I look at Paul now that we've been married 13 years and know, there's no way I'd leave him. He knows me down to my core. He knows all my faults and loves me anyway. He sees me with bed head, no make up, stinky and sweaty from a run and manages to kiss me good morning anyway. He's seen my stomach that is now as jiggly as jello with spider web scars from all three of our babies and finds me attractive anyway. He lets me lose my temper and rail at him and he loves me anyway.
There's a line from "Mansfield Park" that sums up how I feel. I paraphrase it to suit us. I will make him happy, I know I will make him happy; but he will make me everything.