I do my best to not be sanctimonious. Sometimes it’s harder to do than it is to spell.

I’m lucky to have been raised in a home where my original parentage was intact, and they actually liked each other most of the time. They still do, even though I have to yell that them when they argue in front of me. I’m sensitive to mommy and daddy fighting, even if it’s about menial crap like if one of them told the other one about the plans for something. I mean, really, they’re old people. They’re crotchety. They get on each other’s nerves. I’d be nervy, too, if I’d spent the last 44 years with the same person.

My in-laws were married for nearly 30 years before my father-in-law passed away. The same marriage situation with them: nervy but still in love with each other.

I’ve been married to Patrick since 1998, so 77 long years in dog life. That’s a hell of a long time for people in their 30s.

We’re still in love.  We’re even in love with each other. Unless he dutch-ovens me, puts his wiener in another lady’s privates, or turns off my DirecTV, I’ll be in love with him until the day I die.

I’m pretty lucky to be in love with my husband and the father of my children. I’m even luckier to be loved by the man I love.

It’s not that common in these life and times, and that makes me sad. It makes me incredibly sad when I see friends and family ending marriages.

I KNOW some people can’t make it through troubled times. I KNOW some people go nuts and become different people over time. I KNOW things just don’t work out.

It doesn’t make it any easier to feel better about people not staying together.

We haven’t been without our problems, but we worked through it. I still get flashbacks back to that time when we had our issues, that time when we were literally hours away from splitting for good. I get those flashbacks especially when I hear of people splitting up or going through their own problems.

Those flashbacks are when I am most thankful to still have US. I love US. I love US together. I love US with our girls, with our dogs, with our messy house, with each other.

I love that we are still in love. I realize just how delicate our US is to our family.

I hope that’s not sanctimonious.

And, Patrick, this still holds true:

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: divorce, love, marriage

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m a people person. Meaning, I like people. MY people. I don’t really much care for those other people who are douchbag turdburglars.

I’m good to my friends. I like to make sure they’re happy as long as it doesn’t inconvenience me.

I want my friends to be happy. I’d like to be a matchmaker, but I don’t know many single people.

An internet friend/real friend just moved out on his own for the first time in his adult life as the start of his divorce. He doesn’t have children, and most people who read his blog didn’t even realize he was married when he announced his divorce.

Avitable is a man who needs a woman.

He may hole up in his house scheming his takeover of all things rude, crude, and generally inappropriate, but he needs a woman with whom to share that solitude.

He’s a manly girlie man with a rock heart of jello.

He’ll stick up for you and support you until his dying breath unless you touch his massive comic book collection.

He’ll take you to any of the best restaurants within a 20 mile radius of his house, but only if the other days of the week you cook for him or order in. He’s notsomuch a talent in the kitchen.

He’ll let you talk about your vag issues and even offer advice as he has a man pussy of his own.

This honorary girl is the bear man for you if you’re looking for a lover of the finer things in life: Star Wars, bad TV, and comic books.

Come on ladies. Your man is ready for you to do his laundry.

Submit your Lover Resume below.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 64 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dating, divorce, friend, marriage

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

My friend-heart broke again today. That part of my heart reserved for seeing people differently than what I portray them to be. The part of my heart that is the the same as mine and can therefore sympathize with their feelings. The part that I sometimes wish I didn’t have and instead had Dexter’s cold, black heart. The un-feeling kind.

But noooooo… I had to be granted with a heart that feels the pain of my friends. I blame Oprah for granting me the wish of feeling.

I learned today that an internet/for reals friend is divorcing. Another one. A couple I’ve spent time with in real life. A couple I actually thought was “it.” The couple that imagined in my tricky brain to do their own thing, then come home to each other, all the while knowing they were there for each other. The couple that understood each other so intently that they could live almost separate lives, yet still be IT for one another.

But I was wrong.  Their married life is ending. The fairytale marriage I created isn’t actually real. But that’s just the point. I created this fantasy marriage in my head of a happy couple who understood each other so intently that they could live their lives segregated: together but separate.

I’m horribly sad for my friend. I know the exact feelings they are experiencing. Unfortunately. Except I fought hard. Really fucking hard. I’m not eluding to the fact that my friend didn’t try hard, but there are different circumstances to our lives. I need to be married to my husband. My children’s father. The man I adore. The man I envision myself in 30 years sitting with on the mountainside front porch of our Finger Lakes retreat. The man I love more than I could ever love another. I fought fucking hard to keep our marriage intact the way it is today.

We are happy together. Every day isn’t perfect, but every day he makes me smile. Every day I am intensely grateful that he comes home to me and our girls. I thank him every day for deciding to stick it out and work on us.

I love that he loves me. Again.

When I hear of another marriage ending or having trouble, that pit in my stomach returns and reminds me of how much I love my husband and how hard I fought to keep him. It reminds me of how much I take him for granted and need to tell him I love him. It reminds me that the story I have of other people’s lives is just that. A story.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 45 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: divorce, love, marriage

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh