Geobabe and I have 9 months and 6 days left that we can use the excuse “We just got married” to explain our ickiness, after that, we will have to think of another excuse, because we will be embarrassing our children with our cuddling and smootching when their senior prom dates show up. Neither one of us had a perfect life up to the time we started going out, but it sure has been wonderful every day since then. Your “best friend” does not have your best interests in mind. Enjoy Baltimore.
I’m not married… yet. That will come Dec. 6.
We met on a blind date in Portland. She was like an hour late. I was in Pioneer Square waiting for her, knowing she was taking the MAX. Trains come every 10 minutes, so I was going to leave after the next one and she was on that one. I ended up getting a ticket, too. Because I thought I’d be in a spot for only 10 minutes, and just used a quarter for time, then completely forgot about it. (Incidentally, I still have not paid that ticket. I kinda wish I still had it.)
I’m a pretty quiet guy, she is not. The ultimate failure of most of my first dates is my inability to really keep a conversation going. I’m much more open the more you know me, and the more I know I can share the minutae of life with you without boring you. No such issue with Katie. Easy conversation the whole time during dinner. We ended up driving around Portland all night long.
We’ve been together ever since. It’s not always a bed of Roses. But I have recently received confirmation that getting married is clearly the correct move.
For the first month after I proposed, I have been unsure if it was the right decision.
I’ll put it this way. We will have been together for 4 years in 13 days. We will have been living together for about 3 1/2 years by that point. I don’t know what I expect to change by marriage. But it has a definate finality to it. And I guess I’ve just been nervous about it.
Well, the g/f just got transferred to nights. We have the same days off, but those are literally the only days we actually get to see each other where the other isn’t sleeping. The rest of the time, I come home and every night I realize just how much I miss having her there.
It’s like I’m missing my arm or something. It’s just not right…
I agree with what other people have said. Just because your friends marriage isn’t great doesn’t mean a tinkers dam about your own. Make the decisions that are best for your life, and tell her she can either support your decision or she will no longer be in your life.
If she is acting as I think she is; that is she may honestly think she is acting for you and trying to save you from what she perceives is a huge mistake. But she has to understand that its also her job to support you.
Thanks, you guys. This is great. Keep them coming.
My friend’s “reasoning” behind her “advice” is that I just got out of my relatively long, pointless last relationship in July. I dated a guy off and on for close to 10 years, and he dumped me when he realized that he wasn’t “in love” with me. I started talking to Boyfriend on the phone the next day, and there hasn’t been a day since that we haven’t either IM’d each other or spoke on the phone. (He’s the Artist Formerly Known as Rebound Guy.) When we decided that this was more than just a rebound-type situation, she told me that I was insane for getting in a relationship. But when I’m talking to him, or hanging out with him, the only thing I can think is “wow, this is how a relationship is supposed to be!”
I know she’s scared of losing me to someone else. But the entire time that we have been friends, she has slowly eliminated any other friend except for me. (C’mon, I can’t be that good of a friend for someone to dump all their other friends…) When she and her husband separated last year, I couldn’t support what she did, because I totally disapproved of her actions. And she has never let it go that I didn’t support her.
And I’m too much of a non-confrontational person to tell her to go take a flying leap. Basically I’m just slowly phasing her out of my life, because I’m too much of a chicken to get right in her face and tell her that I don’t give a fig about her opinion or her advice, since she obviously doesn’t know what it takes to be happy.
Piffle, I say! Just this past summer, Steve and I were walking thru a parking lot arm in arm, probably smooching too, and a woman passing by asked if we were newlyweds!! As for embarrassing the young 'uns - it’s great! But isn’t it better for kids to see that than arguing and sniping?
Mrs. RickJay and I met on the Internet, believe it or not, five years ago. We were going to the same school so don’t ask me why it took a dating service to meet each other.
It’s been fantastic since Day 1. Five years later we’re still in love. I think we’ve raised our voices maybe three times each in five years. We just have an enormous amount of fun together. She’s from a busted up family; I’m from a very stable family. I’m Catholic, she’s nothing. It doesn’t seem to matter. We’re inseperable, and we even both get along with the in-laws.
Like Screeme, I simply cannot imagine life without Mrs. RickJay. It’s not that I’m obsessed with her or vice-versa. I don’t get terribly homesick when I’m away. I’m a relaxed, balanced sort of guy. But when I envision my life, she’s there. We’re a team. We’ve been a team for five years and I simply have no interest in doing it any other way.
Like Shirley Ujest, Mrs. RickJay and I find it absolutely amazing that couples fight over things like how to arrange the house or leaving the toilet seat up, stuff like that. Those things are of absolutely no importance in our household. They get sorted away in whatever the most convenient manner is. I would never dream of picking a fight over such silly bullshit. Squeezing from the middle of the tube, not putting the cereal back - who cares? Why would I fight without someone I love so much about such nothings? I would NEVER think of insulting her, and she would never think of doing it to me.
And what jarbabyj said. When Mrs. RickJay and I are around each other is when we can relax, be ourselves, and be comfortable and happy. I have no better times than when I’m just sitting on the sofa with her watching TV, and we’re holding each other. I never get tired of it. I don’t have to be Rick J. The Manager or The Angry Customer or The Son or anything else. I’m just me.
And we laugh. All the time. We joke constantly, say “I love you” all the time, hug and kiss all the time. I’m always smiling when she’s around.
Nymysys is right: When you know, you know. But I mean when you KNOW. Infatuation is not knowing. This kind of knowing is… a comfort. A certainty that things are the way they should be. Then you know.
Ironically, I get some of the same flak you do from MY best friend. He’s 33 and a career-successful guy, but when it comes to women he’s the biggest idiot on the planet. He doesn’t know how to have a real relationship and there’s lurking bitterness that I do. The thing is, he’s totally unconscious of his own stupidity when it coems to that sort of thing. Yesterday he told be there are no women where he lives. No single women at all. HE LIVES IN CALIFORNIA. Forty million people and no single women? When I told him he was obviously lying, he said he couldn’t find a girlfriend because he didn’t have washboard abs. (I wish I was making this up, but I’m not.)
So he gives me subtle flak for being in a happy relationship. He’s bitter if I’m unavailable to play Internet games with him because I’m doing stuff with Mrs. RickJay. For a long time his favourite word was “estrogen.” It went like this:
ME: I’m doing (activity) with Mrs. RickJay.
RBF: Oh, yeah. Infected by the estrogen again, huh?
Finally I confronted him.
RBF: Gotta get out of that estrogen there, buddy.
ME: What the fuck are you talking about? Estrogen? What? Are you smoking crack?
RBF: Well, uhhh, ummm, I mean, you seem to do a lot of stuff with her. I mean, that she wants.
ME: Of course I do. I love her and I like spending time with her. Deal with it.
RBF: Yeah, but, uhhhhhhhh, it’s like you’re, you know. Pussy-whipped.
ME: You must be an idiot. She does all kinds of stuff I want to do. She hasn’t dragged me to something I didn’t want to go to in five years. Where’s the problem? Put down the crack pipe.
RBF: Oh. Okay.
So that was cleared up for awhile. Then I mentioned one day that we were going to start a family. Holy shit. It was as if I had said I was going to cultivate smallpox:
ME: We’re going to start a family. We’re planning to do this and that and the other thing. I’m really looking forward to it. This is what I’ve always dreamed of.
RBF: Geez, I don’t know why you want kids. They’re expensive. Spend your money on yourself.
ME: Gosh, thanks for the support. I want them because I want them. I AM spending money on myself, if you insist on looking at it that way.
RBF: Well, I don’t like it when my friends bring their kids over.
ME: So I won’t bring my kids over. I’ll leave them at my parents’ place. They can’t wait for that anyway. Any other problems you’d like to air out?
RBF: Uhhhhhh, well, if you have kids we can’t spend as much time playing video games.
ME: So you would like me to put my entire life on hold so that I have a few extra hours a week to play Total Annihilation? Is that it? Are you smoking crack again?
RBF: Uhhhhhhh. Blarg!
I think I know your frustration. I’d like to share, with my best friend, the things that are cool about my life. He has cool things too - he’s much wealthier than I am, so he has awesome toys, a new BMW, and he just got his pilot’s license. When he tells me about these things I revel in how cool they are. I tell him it’s fantastic he went and became a licensed pilot. But when I tell him about the stuff I find cool - my wife and family - he just can’t wait to run it down. For some reason, HE is jealous of the things I have. But I am not jealous of the things he has. So I suspect that basically you’re dealing with jealousy.
MOVE TO BALTIMORE. Life your life. If it works out you will thank every day that you did it. And if it doesn’t, well, you will have learned more than if you’d done nothing, and probably had some damned good times on the way. Your friend is - probably - a chicken projecting her problems onto you. Go for it. Go Orioles!
Another happy married person here.
We met at church, at college. He kept walking me home. I was dubious about dating at all; it took him 3 weeks to decide that I was the girl for him. He was too smart to tell me that, however.
We got married about a year after we started dating, and just had our 7th anniversary. Things have only gotten better, and they started out pretty dang great.
If it’s what you know you want, then do it. Married life with the right person (and a good dollop of common sense) is the best.
Yet another happily married doper checking in.
I met Missus Coder at a party with some friends from college, maybe 6 months after I had graduated. I was back up there to get together with the people still in school, and they had invited her to come up, too. I saw her at the top of the stairs coming down into the apartment, and thought, “WOW! I gotta meet this angel!” We met, and were friends for several years.
Then one day a bunch of the same group of friends were in Detroit for a weekend party, and I needed a place to stay. She said, “Come stay at my apartment”. And we’ve been together ever since.
Like the rest said, it’s not all roses. I don’t think we’ve ever had a shouting match, but we’ve had plenty of disagreements. We have lots of similarities and differences. But I can’t think of anyone else I could have been with this long (18 years and change of marriage, another year of living together before that). Four houses, one kid, and 5 cats later, she’s the best thing that ever happened to me. We’re planning our cruise to Alaska for our 20th anniversary in 2004, and dreaming
Marriage isn’t a 50-50 thing. It’s 60-40 today, 30-70 tomorrow, and sometimes it feels like it’s 80-80. But it’s worth it with the right person.
Skerri, I think your friend doesn’t know how to deal with happiness. So if she’s unhappy, everyone around her must be made unhappy, too. Go to Baltimore. I have a hunch you won’t regret it.
Make that, “And dreaming about Hawaii for our 25th”. Preview isn’t enough - you gotta read what you wrote, too! Sheesh…
Drachillx and I have been married 6 months today. I answered his Yahoo personal ad by accident 2 years ago November and have been fascinated by him from that day to this. My mom insisted this was a terrible idea, getting involved with a man so soon after my divorce----I’d only been single 5 years. I bowed to the pressure and broke off our engagement and cried for days on end. I vividly remembering calling my mom, feeling like my heart had been ripped from my chest I missed him so much, and she calmly reassuring me this was for the best. I hung up the phone, got up off the floor and went about winning my fiance back. I am the luckiest woman alive—he still wanted me, still loves me and we re-built our relationship.
Don’t let anyone scare you off. Trust yourself. You know what you need; your friends and family may only have vague ideas about what they’d like to see happen for you, but if you have something real, don’t let it go.
…you might want to take it slow.
Talking marriage after a few months can work out, but I wouldn’t bank on it.
Then again, I think about everything.
To respond to your request. I’ve been married only once and remain (happily) for 7 years and counting. Thought about it and it made sense to get married. We also went to 3 pre-marital counselors before hand (long story) and I recommend it VERY HIGHLY!
My husband and I met on a blind date set up by a friend of the family. “He’s weird, like you,” she told me (which means he reads.) We quickly became friends, and a little more than a year later, we married. All of my friends said it was “too soon,” and dispensed dire warnings, but I was truely happy to be with him.
He’s still my best friend, which is the most important thing in a relationship. Too often, couples are in love, but don’t really * like * one another. After the passion cools, they look at one another and realize that they have nothing in common. Infatuation can blind you to the most important aspects of a happy marriage: friendship and compatibilty.
Another true love story: my grandfather’s best friend met a girl on an overnight bus ride. In the morning, when the bus stopped, they ran to the justice of the peace and were married. Sixty-odd years later, they’re still as happy and in love as the day they met.
Oh my God. I could have written sooo much of what has already been said.
There’s no logical reason why Mr. S and I have such a great marriage. We had horrible role models for parents and both grew up totally dysfunctional. We started out as co-workers, moved into being friends, somewhere in there the kissing started, and then we were engaged and married. I know I wasn’t really seriously thinking about all those heavy implications of marriage, and neither was he, so we had plenty of opportunity to goof up. But we never have. We’ve had our share of minor spats, especially in the early years while we were still getting to REALLY know each other as husband and wife. But we HATE it when we’re fighting, and we both want to resolve it as soon as possible and get back to the snuggling. 
COMPROMISE is an important word. And we tend to think of ourselves as WE.
We’re friends. We’re partners. We support each other. There are no stupid male-female mind games. Neither of us truly enjoys an experience unless it’s shared with the other one. We’ve both turned down social opportunities because the other couldn’t attend. We each feel that our life is richer because the other person is in it. We love each other’s sense of humor, and intelligence, and personality, and interests. After Mr. S got downsized, there are times when we spend day after day entirely in each other’s company, as I work in my home office while he does things around the house. It’s GREAT! We act like newlyweds. We touch and snuggle and hug every day. And even in public. I tell him, “I think I’ll keep you.” He calls me “dear” and brings me breakfast every day. Each of us considers the other one the most valuable thing in our lives.
Recently we have found ourselves in a strange role: as sort of a marital role model to friends who are going through a marital rough patch. THERE’s a part I never thought I’d play.
Some people think that life has to be a soap opera to be “exciting,” or that marriage is about getting the upper hand, or that men and women are different species who can never understand each other. That is utter bullshit.
Most of you are newbies.
The Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan and I are coming up on twenty one years. We humiliate our children by kissing in public. Bwhahahahaha!
Move to Baltimore. True love is not something you find; it’s something you make. Marry your best friend, and be happy.
It won’t always be perfect, but it will always be worth it.
My marriage works. I have company when I need it. I have support when I need it. I get a kick in the pants when I need it. I get someone to play with when I need it. And she has blue eyes to die for.
Three days ago, TLaTMS spoke to me with her head on my shoulder, and asked, “What does this feel like to you?”
"Like living happily ever after. "
Regards,
Shodan
My girlfriend followed me to Baltimore in 1980, moving 800 miles, against her parents wishes. We got married 18 months later.
We are still married, and quite happy.
We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary June 6, 2002. Just having a marriage last two decades is something nowadays.
But I wanted to do something special for my wife. A gift that would really endure.
Fortunately, at the time, I did the pest control service for a local furniture store, and I noticed a month before our anniversary he had a couple of chairs in stock – glider/rockers, in a lovely warm oak, with beautiful padded seats and backs. My wife had mentioned that she’s always wanted one.
So I talked with the owner, and arranged to pay for it in three cash installments, the final one to be made on my anniversary.
Now, it happened that my wife was out of town on business that day, and wouldn’t be home until a day or two after our actual anniversary. So when I picked her up and drove her home, she walked in the door and saw her brand new anniversary chair already waiting for her in the living room.
She just stood there, staring at it, her hands clasped in front of her face, palms together, as if in prayer. She kept whispering, “It’s beautiful…it’s beautiful…”
Even now, she often tells me, right out of the blue, that she loves her chair, and it’s the best gift she’s ever received.
I still get all choked up and emotional just thinking of how much I owe Cyn’s mother for her kind contribution to the success of our relationship, and dream of the day I can repay her.
Until then I will keep visiting the shooting range in preparation for that day.
I’ve been thinking about this thread and what I wrote, and I want to add this:
What seems to say it best is that we are greater than the sum of our parts. (Shut up, Beavis.) We have accomplished things, individually and together, that we would never have done without the other person.
2+2 does equal 5.
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DAVEW0071, yer a peach!
My husband and I met in the spring of 1990 as friends. We started dating in November of 1990. We got married in the summer of 1991. We’ve had our rough patches, as any marriage does. We’ve lived in extreme poverty, we’ve had relatively prosperous times. We’re raising a child. We are best friends, and closer now than we were when we first got married. I couldn’t have wished for a better marriage.
I’d dated a girl for almost a year when she started dropiing hints she wanted a ring. The relationship had it’s ups and downs and challenges, but I was determined to make the relationship work. I was dedicated. I lived under the poverty line for six months so I could buy a stone big enough to go along with her trust fund lifestyle (we could buy a wrap for it when I made more money).
She threw it back at me one time too many.
I called an old college roommate and asked how his GF was doing. They weren’t doing well. I asked him for her number.
I’d known her for the five years she dated my roommate, and I knew her while he wasn’t treating her very well.
So I gave her a call. We were engaged three months afterward, married 14 months after that, and are going on 7 years and two boys.
I’ve had about four serious relationships in my life. This one is effortless.
Some advice from a geezer-in-waiting. One of the great old adages is, “If you had a child in the same situation, what would you advise them to do?”
Somehow, asking the question that way clarifies the issue for people.
As far as marriage, I have to say I have been incredibly lucky – twice. Lost my first wife after 24 years together. She was warm and witty and wise and talented. It was John D. MacDonald, I think, who said there should be two categories of marriage: married and really married. We fit easily and strongly into the second category. As an earlier poster said, it’s not always super sex and mountaintop views. All the more often it’s up with a sick kid, or unplugging the toilet or trying to spread too little money over too many bills. (our 17th anniversary, a time of extreme poverty, I dubbed the two-videos-and-a-bowl-of-popcorn anniversary, and it turned out memorably). She had been gone six years last November and I will always miss her.
Understand that I am not romanticizing her, great as she was. She was also a hypochondriac and a pessimist and had periods of terrible self-doubt. But I had an equal share of problems, and we complemented each other as a true team. Mature love understands, accepts and deals with faults. And in that dealing, can come bonds stronger than those of pure untested only-sweet love.
What’s more, my second wife and I have four years together. A bit more tempestuous to start with, as it takes a while for people who have lived their own lives for nearly five decades, to adjust to each other. But we have an equally strong love, that just keeps getting better.
One common thread in both marriages: we were great friends before romance developed. And that helps trememdously.
Hope that helps and you are as happy as we.