Why I’m Still Married To My Husband After 13 Years And Two Kids

In spite of my bad attitude yesterday, our thirteenth wedding anniversary came off pretty well. It wasn’t the romantic, blissful day I would have wished for, but considering we spent it with a preschooler and a nursing infant in tow, it wasn’t bad.

We started the day off with a trip to the pediatrician. Sam weighs over eight pounds now, and the doctor says she’s gained so much weight so quickly that I can slow down on the breastfeeding, maybe stretch it out to three hours between feedings. Thank god for that, because sitting down every two hours to feed this little monster was just about killing me. After leaving the doctor’s office, Michael and I debated where we should go and what we should do. Honestly, I didn’t want to do anything but sleep, but Cassie needed some time out and someone (me) foolishly proposed taking her to the beach, so that’s where we decided to go.

Yorktown Beach is a nice little beach along the York River, with a series of shops and a boardwalk that were recently constructed there. I didn’t get to do any shopping (way too tired to even contemplate it) but I did get to sit in the sun and relax while Michael chased after Cassie. We had a picnic lunch, courtesy of our local Subway, and I was able to let Sam snooze in her little tent while the rest of us roasted in the sun. After about two hours, we were all hot, sweaty, sticky and coated in a fine mixture of sand and sun block. And because we weren’t messy enough, we decided to have ice cream on top of that. Cassie, needless to say, was absolutely filthy by the time we left, but she was happy and dancing and she fell asleep in the car on the way home and that’s really what mattered most.

So after a day of running around and sweating to death, my bad attitude finally burned itself off. With both kids asleep, I collapsed in the chair for a bit, pulled up the ol’ laptop and did some writing. I even got a little drawing done. Michael disappeared to his office for a couple of hours, and I got the peace and quiet I needed so badly the past few days.

In addition to being our wedding anniversary, yesterday was also Michael’s last day home on family leave. He heads back into the office today after more than two weeks off, leaving me to finally fend for myself with both kids. I am going to miss him, sort of, although I will get to see him around lunch. At least this time around, I’m not absolutely terrified of being left alone with a baby. I’m much better prepared, I hope, to cope on my own. And being on my own now gives me time to think about why I’m married to a man who yesterday was about to drive me crazy. Here’s the list of reasons I came up with.

1) He gives great tech support. True, it takes at least two remotes to turn on our computer/TV hybrid, and up to five remotes if you want to change the channel, but when a computer goes down in our house, you can guarantee that Michael will be able to fix it and probably improve it better than any dork you could hire.

2) He cooks, he cleans (sort of), he does yard work. Michael does all those chores that I either don’t have time to do or just flat out hate doing. I never really did learn how to cook, so we’d starve if he didn’t fix most of our meals. And the yard would look like a jungle if he didn’t mow it down every week, cause I can’t stand doing yard work. As for the cleaning... well, two out of three ain’t bad, and I have to do something in this marriage aside from herding the kids.

3) He puts up with me. Not a lot of people would deal well with my ugly mood swings, especially since I don’t swing from happy to cranky, but from cranky to downright pissed (being happy is over-rated in my book). But Michael seems capable of riding out the storms and content to deal with my usual level of snarkiness, so how can I complain about that?

4) He’s got the money, honey, and he earned it. My dad always used to say, “You can marry a rich man just as easily as you can marry a poor one.” I say marry a smart man, because being rich doesn’t necessarily mean a guy’s got enough brains to hold onto his dough, whereas a smart man will figure out how to make money no matter what. Michael has two degrees in aerospace engineering. Guess what? We ain’t hurting for cash over here.

5) He lets me stay home and be a lazy bum. Okay, you and I both know that house wives, or domestic engineers, or whatever the hell you want to call us, are not lazy people. We work our asses off cleaning the house and raising the kids. But there was a time before kids when I used to clean house and work a job out in the real world, and that royally sucked because it left me no time to do the things I loved, like writing and art. So two years before Cassie came along, Michael and I agreed I would quit my job to start my own business. Six years later, I still make almost zero money, but I’m so much happier now. Wait a second, didn’t I just say happiness was over-rated? Okay, I’m not happy, but I’m not killing anybody either, and that’s a good thing.

6) He’s still good looking after thirteen years of marriage. If you think this one doesn’t matter, think again. If you don’t find your mate physically attractive after several years of marriage, you got problems. Nobody wants to wake up one morning, look at their spouse and say, “Damn, that’s ugly.” Trust me on this one.

7) I love him, pure and simple. This one isn’t open to reason or logic. It’s got nothing to do with his money, his looks, or his ability to cook. I just love the big doofus. He’s mine and he’s going to stay mine, even if he does drive me crazy at times. Anybody got a problem with that? No? I didn’t think so.

And that’s it, seven reasons why I’m still married, in spite of my bad attitude yesterday and in spite of his driving me crazy. There are more reasons than this, but these are the first ones that came to mind and I’m out of writing time now so I’ll just close here. I’m sure if you come back in another thirteen years, Michael will still be driving me crazy, but we’ll still be married too, so I won’t have anybody to blame but myself, as always.