What Can I Say?

He had me at hello.

Credit: IMDb You’ve Got Mail

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In the strictest of terms we’re incompatible. Me fretful, modest and a little uptight and him chill, a cutup, and a little wild. It takes years to figure out what’s going on in my mind, even for me and God forbid anyone else tries to get up in there to sort it out. For him it’s food, sex, and sleep. While I worry, he’s all about plans A, B, C, etc. like “There’s nothing to worry about. We have a plan for that.” Strong, loyal, and caring he’s the head of our household and the first person on this planet I turn to always. He’s 58 today and after 41 years together, I thank God he’s mine.

What does it take to make a long-term relationship work?

Compromise and the occasional ‘Sheldon Cooper-like’ agreement

We can count on one hand how many fights we’ve had since 1983. Disagreements, infinite, but fights? He threw a glass at a wall once, I’ve hurt him with ambivalence and with words. We’ve fought over how to support our sons. He left once in anger and so did I but I don’t recall either situation. When we graduated college we made our first agreement - that initially we would follow the money. Over the years, our personal time became more important than earning more money. Somewhere during that first decade, we settled into the habit of talking - sometimes during exercise and always before going to sleep at night. Talking, sitting on a porch swing together, looking into each other’s faces - this instilled in us a willingness to work through things until we could agree and, sometimes, decide to disagree. The point is, neither of us always got our way.

Enjoy today by planning for tomorrow together

After we started our family, there was more to life than him or me or us. We had other humans in our care. Sometimes we knocked it out of the park and others we crashed and burned. What we became good at was planning. Picking the school with the best challenge for our gifted son. Staying with an excellent childcare center because our second son had epilepsy, requiring specialized care. This is when we decided that we’d put a certain amount away for a rainy day and enjoy the rest of the fruits of our labor in the here and now. By tucking away an amount we felt we could live without, we accumulated security for later years. We’ve dipped into it many times for emergencies, but the point is we decided TOGETHER what would work best and stuck to it. When we look back on the 30+ years of our children's lives, the most memorable times were our attendance to their special events because we chose not to be in jobs that kept us on call or working late or the one to turn the lights off at work. Our boys recall us reading to them at night before lights out and staying for a while after lights out because this is when EVERY child tells you their deepest secrets, fears, and funnies from that day. They also remember all the long summer road trips to the beach where they spent hours making sand castles and forgetting their normal lives for a bit. Planning makes relaxing possible.

Get real personal

We went to high school together. Our parents went to high school together. They weren’t friends, but knew of each other. There was no Dutch treat then for practical reasons. My home was a family of 7 by then and with no car we were allowed to drive, boys came calling on us or we went nowhere. He made the trip down from his opposite end of the valley, using his money hard-earned doing dishes at the truck stop. I could only work over the summers and only if I could get a ride from someone else at work. So, the burden was on him. It went so far as him pitching in on chores if I wasn’t finished when he showed up. Dating and eventually marrying meant that our families blended. Sometimes that meant we fought over situations with them. Sometimes we bailed people out, both literally and figuratively. We got real close and real personal. We learned everything about each other and about every member of each of our families. Long term relationships come with baggage. All kinds of baggage. If you ain’t into carrying bags, you’d better get on a different train.

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Credit: BrianRxm

Money - come together, right now…

John Wayne has a line in the movie, The Quiet Man, where he says “Money! I’m sick of the talk of it. Is that all you think about? Money?” Figure out your finances as a team and you’re halfway home.

I’m sure there are lots of examples of couples who keep their funds separate without issue. I don’t know any of them. The people I know who keep separate finances do so because they don’t agree. Compromise doesn’t mean always agreeing. But it does mean finding common ground. Commonality is a peacemaker. Look how many people you read on Substack who you might not give the time of day in real life. Different politics, different social status, different spiritual beliefs. I bet your reading is way more diverse than your workplace or possibly the community in which you live. Here, without in-person visuals or history or fear, you feast your eyes on a title then dive in. Agree or not, you likely follow many authors who are not much like you. This is because you’ve connected over some common ground. You can’t take the gold with you when you go. If you can’t compromise, chances are it’s always between you. It’s something that separates you, instead of connecting you. Therapists and divorce lawyers are making bank on the inability of humans to find common ground on their finances. Think about that, then get over yourselves.

Make contact

Physical contact is part of language. Without it, we’re only half connected to the world around us. My first son hugs me multiple times a day. Having lost the script with him in the middle of his adolescence, his initiating this intimacy is a blessing beyond value. My youngest receives hugs, but doesn’t dole them out. He does however randomly tell me he loves me. My husband hugs me throughout the day, every day. For those who read me often, you know I get 20-second hugs on the regular, which is the current ‘gold standard’ of bonding rituals for female homo sapiens. He does a lot, I mean A LOT, of research on everything but especially on relationships. If you don’t have someone in your life who hugs you, you can start making contact with others by shaking hands vigorously while looking into each person’s eyes and placing your open hand on their elbow or shoulder. Smiles make miracles too. Loneliness is self-imposed. Get out. Go to the grocery store and actually pick your own groceries. Smile, say hello. Compliment strangers in the checkout line, like my youngest did when he was 3 years old. Lol. Get a dog - people love dogs - it’s common ground. Or a snake or other pet (Chaos Trials).

I hate to use a tired phrase, but back in my day we went to square dances. Yep, you heard me right. There was a community center the size of a one-room school house where a caller and band showed up every Saturday night and everyone learned to square dance. Here we youngsters learned by watching how people related, then by dancing with family members, then by dancing with community members. Then when high school came and with it pop music, we already knew the rituals. Then it wasn’t so hard to ask someone to dance. Relationships won’t start, won’t thrive, and won’t succeed without contact. Put yourself out there.

Grow old - together

If for no other reason than losing your near sight together, stay in it for the long haul. Sometimes I can recall how we looked at certain times in our lives in my minds eye. But, mostly I realize I love how we are now. In every ‘now’. We don’t like all the same things, we don’t have the same favorite movies or food or hobbies. But, we like each other. We’re there for each other. We say good morning. We ask how each other slept. We ask each other “what’s the plan today”. It’s just a lifetime of intimacy, of normalcy, of seeing all the worst and all the best of each other. Neither one of us sees worth a shit without our glasses, so the bumps and bulges and saggy everything really mean nothing in the big scheme of things. He’s maintains his health in a race to stay with me as long as possible “so some old fat guy doesn’t move in and have fun spending ‘planning’ coin after he’s gone”. I’m maintaining my health in a race to stay with him so he doesn’t get VD making time with the ladies in a nursing home after I’m gone. Fact check that - people in nursing homes are the fastest growing demographic for sexually transmitted diseases AND there are 4 ladies for every man because most men don’t think like my husband - be in it to win it. LOL.

All I can say is I lean hard on him and he’s ok with that. He pushes me to stay healthy and I put up with that. Make friends, then make a home, make love and maybe make some babies. Humans are meant to be together, no matter what that looks like.

I love you Russ. Happy birthday ya filthy animal!