BetterThingsToDo posted this and I had to re-blog. I wholeheartedly give this entire list a happy thumbs up.
The three that stuck out for me the most were:
Go to bed angry
Yes please. Why do I want to stay up late fighting with you when the mere sight of you makes me want to pull my own hair out right now? We’ve never observed this rule and generally if we are having a fight that is at all serious we find ourselves retreating, walking away, resuming the discussion days, sometimes weeks later. When tempers have simmered and opinions have been considered and we remember why we love each other enough to admit that you might, in fact, have a good point.
Be proud and brag
A long time ago I decided that I wouldn’t say anything about Adam, that I wouldn’t say to him. This happened after we had been together roughly 2 years (I was 20, he was 24) and he found a list I had written that was a Pro/Con to staying with him.
On that lined piece of paper I had coldly and calculatingly listed (in point form no less – no words wasted here) what exactly I liked and disliked about this man I had called mine. Adam revealed his character that day when he sat down and silently read the list of cons, nodding in agreement as he conceded that yes, he was a stubborn ass, and yes he was a slob, etc etc etc.
He dealt with that situation with far more respect and tact than I had showed him by writing the list in the first place, and wasn’t even mad. But the horrible feeling of shame and embarrassment I felt as I watched him read my words has stuck with me and I devised that rule on the spot.
This doesn’t mean I don’t bitch about my husband. This means that when I bitch about my husband it’s only about things that I have said to him at least a dozen times in more or less the same phrasing. And it also means that I try and balance out the bitching by telling him, and occasionally others too, things I think are wonderful about this man.
Do your own thing
If I had, at 18, signed up for one of those dating sites that matches two people based on a compatibility questionnaire, Adam and I would never, ever in a million years have been matched up.
Y’all, there is a reason that opposites attract. There’s a reason that a borderline OCD clean freak met and married a man whose university apartment carpet was buried beneath three feet of clothing. There’s a reason that I, a ravenous reader who takes any and all opportunities to immerse myself in words – written, read, spoken, whispered – married a man who speaks almost entirely through his actions, who hasn’t finished a book in more than ten years.
Different interests are important because they force you to occasionally be apart, which in turn keeps you together. This is also why you should sometimes take separate trips, even just for a weekend here or there. It’s nice to be missed, and guys, you can’t miss someone who is always there. Doing what you’re doing. Liking what you’re liking. You just can’t.
What I’m saying is that Adam is not, and will never be, my on paper guy. And looking back at the type of man I thought I wanted to end up with (interested in literature, clean, 9-5 job etc etc) it all just seems so boring. Without Adam I wouldn’t have Gus. I wouldn’t have moved into a house with a sex attic. I wouldn’t have a husband who regularly watches children’s movies and loves my family as fiercely as I do, who can diffuse any situation with a joke.
I laugh a lot and I always feel loved and damn, it’s working. I fully endorse this list.
15 Ways to Stay Married For 15 Years
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