Tomorrow is Howard and my aniversary. We’ll be celebrating as we usually do, by continuing to be happily married and occasionally pausing to hug and say “I’m glad I married you.” We’ve never made a big deal out of aniversaries. I mean we completely missed our first one because we were too busy painting the exterior of our first house. I think we attempted to make a big deal out of aniversary 5 by spending the night at a hotel. At the time Howard was working customer support and was on call via pager 24-7, not a good mix with “romantic getaway.” The big effort at year 10 was that Howard stayed home from Novell and bought me a mcgriddle. Howard even wrote about it in an Open Letter. The funniest part of that for me was all the people who came to me quietly trying to figure out whether I was upset that my only aniversary present to celebrate 10 years of marriage was a mcgriddle. I wasn’t, I was delighted. I love mcgriddles.
Aniversaries are only important as reminders to us to stop and appreciate what we have. I would by far rather have a joyful life with Howard where he shows his love in little ways every day than have a huge effort at proof-of-love only on “special days” 3 or 4 times a year. In this I am lucky because I share my life with a wonderful person who believes the same as I do. We share life, love, religion, children, Schlock, and a host of other things. It may seem cliche to say “My husband is my best friend”, but cliche or not, it is true. When he isn’t around I save up things to talk to him about. Anytime the children delight or frustrate me, or I see an interesting news article, or have an interesting idea, Howard is the one I want to tell it to. When Howard is away I feel unbalanced. He keeps me centered, helps me clean when I don’t want to, takes over when I’ve lost my cool with the kids. After 12 years we can still keep each other up until 2 am because we’re having too much fun talking to go to sleep. I love him deeply, even the things he doesn’t like about himself. I love him bearded & beardless. I’m a better, smarter, stronger person because I have been married to him. I could ramble on for pages and still not be able to cover all the ways that I am grateful to have him in my life. I love the life we have built together and I’m looking forward to continuing to share it.
*hug*
And that’s just the way it should be. I’m lucky enough to have parents who share the same kind of relationship, and hopefully I will too, someday.
Meanwhile, it’s nice to read about people who do instead of the usual run of scandals we’re subjected to by the media.
May you have many more anniversaries just like the ones you’ve had so far.
Happy Anniversary!
Maybe the not-celebrating thing runs in the family. Fabian and I completely missed our last one, along with both our birthdays. Too busy moving. We made up for it by buying Alex a ridiculously large pile of presents on his birthday.
According to the psyc class I had yesterday, My spouse is my best friend is the best thing for people to report for relationship satisfaction/staying together kind of thing, so cliche or not, that’s really cool.
Out of curiousity, what’s a McGriddle?
McDonalds found a way to bake syrup into pancakes. Then they slap a sausage between a pair of these pancakes. The result is pancakes and sausage that you can hold in your hand. Very yummy.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Twelve down and eternity to go!
You know that Ross and I are best friends. All his co-workers are jealous that we are best friends and have fun together(WHY did THEY get married?). Plus, I ALWAYS tell my kids that they need to find their best friend to marry.
For Anniversaries: Usually, we try to get out to a movie together or eat out together so we can sit across from each other, eat food someone else cooked and end up talking about the kids…and it’s always good to have a sit down relationship check up. How are we doing? Anything bugging anyone? Do we need to change anything?
Although, sometimes I get a little needy for an extra-special gushing over me…. I mean, I did do all the stalking to get us together, I deserve to get gushed over ever 5 to 10 years, right? 🙂
Yay you!
I love happy couples. I’m such a sucker for a good happily-ever-after. 🙂
Hi Sandra! It’s your DH’s once-colorist here. ^_^
Finally being married to a person I can truthfully say is my best friend, I understand the feeling, and it’s amazing. I’m so happy that you and Howard share that. Congratulations on every day of your lives together, not just anniversaries!