Warts and All

It is actually coming up on being with my husband for TWENTY years!  Seriously!  You know that scene in Groundhog Day where the insurance guy says "Ten Years!"  Now double that and the pitch just goes up even more. 

We haven't been married quite that long, but together, yes.  Just about twenty years.  And we're pretty darn happy, too.  I remember about six years ago, before we had our kids, someone was bitching about my biological clock (as if that was any of their business in the first place) and one of our family members said "Leave them alone.  They still LIKE each other."  YEAH.  Leave them alone!  

I'm not saying that there aren't bumps in the road now and then, days when I am furious at something stupid he has done, or vice versa.  I'm a perfect angel, though, so he never gets mad at me.  blink.  blink.  blink.  innocence and rainbows. 

So.  What makes this work?  What makes our relationship work, when so many others do not?  Especially after you have kids, when the tensions are ratcheted up a million times by waning hormones because of sleepless nights, whatever it is that makes those days after kiddos are born harder. 

What it mostly takes, for us, is accepting the warts as best as you can.  I always give this advice to people who are just getting married.  Figure out what you hate most about the person you're marrying and learn to love it because you're NOT going to change it.  (People do not "change if you love me."  Don't even ask).  A post by a blogger I don't read often enough, Stephanie Klein, reminded me of this because she said "what deadly sin are you willing to go to bed with?"  That's good advice, but my hubby's "sin" isn't as big as one of the Big 7. 

He's a flatulent man, honestly. Most of the time, it's not very smelly, but it's LOUD. I do not love this trait about him other than the fact that he is just so un-self-conscious about it. That unselfconsciousness I kind of do love because that makes him a sort of fearless person, and that's awesome. And it's not like he surprised me-- on our first date he snuck one out, and I thought he must be mortified (he was a little embarrassed, but not as much as most people would be).

So I laugh.  Even when it's kinda gross, and I need to spray him down with Lysol.  And guess what?  My kids do it a little bit too (Sean more than Maia).  And I actually DO kind of love that in the crazy way that mothers have of loving those little traits because they are little reflections of yourself. 

And laughing when it's kinda gross and yelling at each other HONESTLY without bringing up every fight you've ever had, forgiving each other sometimes, trying to forget, even, and not expecting the sun AND the moon.  And just dealing with the warts and all, every single day.  Some days are easier than others. 

All of that makes almost twenty years feel like just a start, and look forward to the next twenty.