Sometimes you don't want to go home again

I spent the weekend with my husband in the college town where we fell in love what seems like 100 years ago. We wandered the streets hand in hand at one point reflecting on the time we spent there. It was not his college, but he visited me enough that I consider it our town.

We were accompanied this weekend by a couple of newlyweds which of course led my stroll down memory lane back to the year I was in their shoes.

It made me shudder.

I love these newlyweds and being back in my college haunts made me yearn to be young again. But upon further review, I would never trade places with my young, newly married self.

I adore my husband. We met (and some would say married) when we were kids and have grown up together. K. has become an even better man than even I expected and I expected a lot. He is kind to everyone he knows. He is an incredible father and while sometimes his humour makes me roll my eyes, he can also make me laugh harder than anyone in the world.

He fights fair and isn't afraid to say he is sorry or was wrong. He makes me feel secure enough that neither am I. (Although it is very rare that I actually am wrong. Tee hee.) Needless to say, in my cockier moments I think we are pretty good role models of a marriage. I still choose him first to hang out with. To this day, he is my best friend.

But that first year? Oh man-I don't even like to think of it. I was lonely, disillusioned, frustrated and gaining weight by the second as I ate my way through the fear and uncertainty.

I woke up most mornings pretty sure that I had made the biggest mistake of my life and I bet-he did too.

We were engaged for a year and we thought we were so realistic. We had talked ad nauseum about what we wanted out of life. We knew what our job plans were. We worked out our financial ideas. We talked about when to have kids, how many we wanted and what we would do when they came. We knew each other inside and out. We were both sure that marriage was work and that even though we were head over heels in love with each other, we knew there would be times we disagreed and had to hash out where to go next. We didn't get caught up in the wedding hype. We were excited to start our lives as a team. We were totally prepared for the good, bad and ugly and nothing scared us. We were committed to go the distance 'till death do us part.

Then we came home from the honeymoon and began crashing into one another at every turn. This man moved into my apartment (oh, it was actually our apartment but I mean... really?) who was kinda dirty and a little self-absorbed. Even worse, the man's wife, who was formerly fiercely independent, fun-loving and laid back, suddenly morphed into a needy, nagging brat.

It seems we had prepared for the big stuff, but we didn't count on how much trouble taking out the trash or leaving the toothpaste cap off would cause. It was crazy. We both seemed unrecognizable to each other and the sense of permanence was terrifying. Let's just say, I am glad that we didn't live together before the wedding, because I bet that wedding day would never have come.

All these years later we can look back and laugh at it but back then, it was one long year.

The good news is we survived and I would argue, it is because of that year that we are strong today. Back then all we had to worry about was the toothpaste cap and who paid the cable bill. We didn't think so then, but our problems were pretty small. So, we got a chance to learn how to fight without too many distractions. I know that sounds weird, But, let's be real- in marriage, you fight. And, though I am not a licensed pro, from my perspective there is some unwritten rule that you treat your spouse worse than anyone else in your life and expect way more from them in return. So the fighting can get ugly.

If you're not careful, every little pet peeve can become a slight and every slight can become perceived as purposeful hurt.
What we did that first year is figure out when to politely draw the line and when we needed to move the line further down the road. I gave up expecting K. to read my mind and he decided to be more forgiving when I reminded him to do stuff over and over and over. I know he's not doing things on purpose and he knows I don't think he's a dope or worse vindictively forgetting to put clothes in hamper. So, at the end of the day, when he throws his clothes on the floor near the hamper ( because he is dog-tired and will inevitable move them in the morning) and I accuse him of doing it to spite me, it's easier to roll out of the madness of our silly argument and get back to the business of having our normally fun relationship.

Back then we let go of our egos and stripped away the layers of miscommunication when garbage was the biggest of our troubles. Thank God because now we hash it out over much larger obstacles and without the security of knowing that we are still on the same home team, I am not sure we would survive.

These days we have heavier finances, and children's futures, home and career decisions that we have to face together. Now, we also have the added bonus of constant children background noise to remind us that not only do we need to figure our stuff out, but we are being watched while we do it. Thus, we are passing on a model of relationships to the next generation.

Kids make it hard to be self-absorbed. You can't really microfocus anymore on your spouse's behavior because you need each other too much to tear each other apart. Not to mention, you (should) consider your spouse through your children's eyes. That makes it easier to see the disagreement as just a disagreement instead of a potentially fatal character flaw.

That doesn't mean we don't fight and annoy each other (sometimes daily) or that our egos don't rear their ugly heads from time to time. It just means that it is more important than ever that we are on the same team so we remind ourselves of that every time which makes the fighting shorter and easier to move beyond. Our arguments tend to be fairly superficial, short lived and much quieter than they used to be. The real stuff, the heavy stuff, is done in an environment of kindness and concern rather than anger and accusation.

That said, after our first child was born, we had to institute the rule that anything said after 3 am doesn't count. We discovered (both of us) after the sleep deprivation set in, that while we are usually very even-keeled and fair, we are both painfully aware of the other's weaknesses and soft-spots and in the middle of the night, when we are out of our minds tired, we are not afraid to poke right at those soft spots until they bleed

We are still a work in progress and will be until we leave this Earth but we have discovered that the work isn't all bad and the progress is usually a fine payoff in the end.

Here we are, three kids later and 11 years into this and while I would never go back, I wouldn't trade that newlywed year for the world.

I could go for another honeymoon though. I think we've earned it.