BitchFest '03

Chesa and I haven't exactly been the sweetest people the past few days which is really why I haven't posted much. I don't like to show the ENTIRE planet my bitter bitch side. I'm blaming my bitch run on hormones, severe allergies, stress, and lack of sleep. I choose to believe her fest is loosely based on the same triggers.

Something I have been thinking a lot about lately is marriage. As you all know, I have been married for over five years. For the most part I have only good things to say about marriage. It is very nice to have someone to support and love you and be on your side no matter what. It is very nice to climb into bed and not worry is my fat roll is showing, because frankly I know he doesn't really care. It is extremely nice to have someone to cuddle you when you wake up sweating in the middle of the night from a horrible nightmare. I know I could call my husband any hour of the day or night and he would never be mad at me for that he would simply talk to me for as long as I needed. I know that if I said the words 'I need you for...(insert ANYTHING here) he would be there. The reason I have been thinking about this so much is because I've heard such crazy notions from people about marriage lately. I have Chesa on one side who for as long as I have known her has been terrified of marriage. Then there is The Yeti whose view on marriage came up in the discussion/debate of gay marriages. I guess I never realized how people have such different reasons/views of what marriage SHOULD be. Amazingly enough my husband and I never had a discussion about expectations of marriage before we took our vowes. We grew up in different times, different parts of the country and vastly different households. His parents were typical June/Ward Cleaver marriage. She did EVERYTHING for her husband and children. My husband didn't even know how to do laundry when he left for college. The only cooking the men did was if they were camping. My parents fought constantly, my Dad worked third shift and my Mother started leaving him for a month at a time starting when I was about twelve. It was very odd to see affection/kissing/hand holding in either household. After all this I never thought that was how marriage was suppose to be. Maybe that is why I have such a radical notion of what I think marriage should be. I think it should be different for every couple, I don't think one way could work universally, just like it doesn't for anything else. I was never frightened to get married because I think deep down we both knew we would do whatever it took to make it work. I did have one conversation about divorce with my husband before the big day, and that was when I told him the following "There are only two reasons I will ever leave you. The first is if you ever raise your hand to me, the second is if you ever cheat/betray me. Everything else we can work out." and we have. It hasn't been all roses and kisses. I have had bags packed and screaming matches and slammed doors and horrible insults and we are stronger for it. We worked it out, we didn't give up. I have faith we always will work it out and never give up. We have a very unconventional marriage, though I've just realized that lately. We live apart for about half of the week, there is a dramatic age difference, I have two step children that I have helped raise for the past 7 years, I deal with his ex wife (he doesn't) and we hug and kiss and hold hands in front of anyone that is around us. We also make sarcastic jabs and inside jokes in the same manner. Just because you are married or even in love with a person does not mean you won't have knock down, drag out fights. If you truly love the person, you will probably have more, mainly because passion runs both ways. The more passsionate you are about the person, the harder you will love them and the harder your temper will flare at them. My point is, what is your view of marriage? Why are you married? Why aren't you?