Tag Archives: husband

Year Six: The Year Jake Got Competition From Another Man

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One year ago, on May 5th, I was worried that my five year anniversary with Jake and my first real Mother’s Day would be ruined. I’d been feeling sick for several days. Jake and I were planning an embryo transfer for the next month and I was supposed to call with cycle day one. With 10 month old twins, though, my period hadn’t regulated yet and I was a week late. When the nurse at the fertility clinic had asked if I could be pregnant, I assured her that Jake could not get me pregnant. We’d accepted it. It was fine, but I wasn’t taking a test. She understood, but said I’d need to come in to check for cysts if I didn’t get my period in the next couple of weeks.

Two more weeks had gone by at this point and, concerned that I might have some severe feminine problems, I decided to make an appointment for the next week. Whatever scary news I received would come after our special weekend. I knew, however, that they’d insist on a pregnancy test. I figured I’d cope with any difficult emotional response at home and take one myself. Off to Dollar General I went, grabbing a can of chicken noodle soup along with my one dollar test, just to feel like the trip wasn’t a total waste.

As I sat on the toilet lid, waiting for my negative test result, I Googled reasons for a late period. I hypothesized everything from PCOS to ovarian cancer, anything other than the obvious. I glanced at the test, assuming I’d immediately be throwing it away. Much to my surprise, however, I saw not one line, but two.

I took two more tests, both of which also came up positive and called my OBGYN.

Me: “False positives, though… that’s not really a thing, right? That’s just a plot device from romance novels and teen movies?”
Nurse: “I mean, yeah, basically. If you have three positive tests, you’re pregnant.”

Pregnant. After Jake had been told by his urologist that “miracles happen” in regards to our chances of natural conception… after spending $30,000 on back-to-back rounds of pandemic IVF… after having been cautioned against more children while fighting pneumonia, heart complications, and sepsis following the girls’ birth… I was pregnant.

So it was, that our sixth year of marriage passed in a whirlwind of minivan shopping, home improvements, and continued toddler joy. We celebrated a first birthday, first steps, and first words, all while preparing for the arrival of our baby boy. With no complications and zero drama, on December 6th our Thomas came into the world. The romcoms were half right, y’all. I’ve never believed in love at first sight, but I just hadn’t met the right man.

I adore my daughters. I love being home with them, hearing every giggle, witnessing every new milestone, soothing every tantrum, kissing every owie. I look forward to a future where I have two precious little girls to guide. We’ll do crafts, dance to bad pop music, watch princess movies, go shopping, do our nails. I love that I get the chance to be the mother mine wanted so very much to be to her daughter but couldn’t. Our relationship is truly everything I’d hoped. The bond I have with Thomas is not stronger, but it is… more unexpected. Whenever I envisioned having children one day, I was so focused on the idea of giving girls what I never had, that I never really imagined how I’d feel about a son. I even worried that I couldn’t be as close to a boy, no matter how I loved him.

Our sixth year was an utter surprise. It was the year Jake got his future hunting buddy and Lord of the Rings fan. It was the year his parents met their first grandson. It was the year my Gramma finally got her redheaded great grandbaby. Though I love my girls just as much, perhaps I relate to them more, understand their ornery motivations too clearly, because it’s my sweet Thomas who will rarely do anything wrong in his mother’s eyes. With his Daddy’s laidback charm, at just five months, this little guy could sell me ocean front property in Arizona.

After battling infertility and the drama of the girls’ birth, year six was the one where we welcomed a naturally conceived baby into the world without fear or heartache. While I jest that my children are in any way competing with their father, this was the year when I gave a piece of my heart to another man… one who looks just like him. Often having accused Jake of being a literal robot in his extreme stoicism, I’ve found it particularly swoon-worthy watching him fulfill the tough cowboy stereotype as his girls have carefully wrapped him around their little fingers over the last two years. Perhaps one day, I’ll feel he’s too hard on Thomas, just as I’m sure he’ll consider me to be too easy. In the meantime, however, seeing Jake snuggle and kiss the mirror image that is his baby boy…

If I still had my whole heart to give, it would be all his once again. Alas, I don’t think he minds sharing it.

Seven Birthdays

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We only had 3’s, no 8’s.

Years ago, I was entering my mid-late 20s in the South and had spent the time since my divorce trying to figure out if I wanted the things I thought I’d wanted, or if everyone had just told me I wanted them. Growing up in the early 2000’s suburban/rural town of Shetland, marrying one’s high school or college sweetheart wasn’t just the dream, but the expectation. Shetland’s welcome sign declared it A City With a Vision, but the Kasey Musgraves quote “If you ain’t got two kids by 21, you’re probably gonna die alone,” would have been more fitting. Indeed, by the time I found myself reclaiming my maiden name on my undergraduate diploma, I was one of a dozen young divorcees from the class of 2006, most of whom did have two children. While I’d initially felt behind at 23, thumbing through all of those Facebook posts of engagement rings, wedding photos, new homes, and ultrasound pictures, I eventually came to the realization that I had it all to do over again. I could choose something different… if that’s what I actually wanted.

It was at 26, while substitute teaching an elementary school class that I realized exactly the life I desired. I didn’t like young children and only took such assignments if I was desperate for money, like when the school year was ending and I was staring down a summer with only my half-time librarian position to pay the bills. It was an easy enough day, overseeing a music class and watching Frozen on repeat, broken up by an end-of-the-year assembly in the early afternoon. “Assembly” probably wasn’t the proper term. It was more like a show, where Ronald McDonald performed childlike slapstick comedy to a crowd of children roaring with laughter, as I cynically rolled my eyes.

After ten or fifteen minutes of silly props and noises, however, I noticed that it wasn’t just the children who were laughing themselves sick. The parents in attendance were in similar hysterics at seeing their little ones so innocently amused. I looked around the gym full of kids, still lacking the affection expected by Southern women, yet suddenly more aware than ever of the enjoyment they brought their parents. That’s when it hit me that I wanted this… not because of some animalistic biological drive or archaic gender standard reinforced by life in the South, but because I wanted it for myself. I’d spent years considering more adventurous paths less traveled only to finally realize that I wanted exactly the mundane life expected of me… and that was okay. I would, however, need to get serious about dating. It was then that I began to pray, every night, for God to bring me a good, hardworking, even-tempered man, who would make a great husband and wonderful father… and most importantly to open my eyes and allow me to recognize such a man despite the fog of unreasonable expectations and my own self-sabotage.

My first date with Jake started with a pep talk, as I reminded myself that the worst that could happen was another funny story… only to sigh because I was getting awfully tired of funny stories. It had been a year since that day in my elementary school gym. As much as I had enjoyed the single stage of life, I was ready to move on to the next adventure. I was ready to fall in love and be on my way to the marriage and family I’d failed so miserably to secure previously. I didn’t want a romcom Meet Cute or soapy drama. I wanted someone to come home to, curl up with on the couch while I read and he did his own thing, a presence to feel in the middle of the night. I wanted to laugh, argue, grieve, and plan a life with someone. Odds were, my first date with the fluid engineer I met on Plenty of Fish would be forgettable at best, but perhaps… just maybe… it would be my last first date…

… and so it was.

It was on my first birthday with Jake that I realized he didn’t really do birthdays. When I responded with fitting horror, he explained that such occasions were for children and no one in his family really celebrated them after the age of twelve. Even so, on our three month anniversary, Jake made the trip to Shetland and joined me in a two day birthday celebration, meeting my parents for the first time and humoring all of my ridiculous 28-year-old whims. A month or so later, he indulged me once again, as I insisted we celebrate his birthday, not with all the hoopla and whimsy of mine, but by doing something he specifically wanted to do, which turned out to be Topgolf, pizza, and a movie.

Over the years, I’ve gotten no less demanding with my own birthday, insisting on celebrating the struggles and triumphs of the previous year and the excitement to come in the next. There have been numerous ice cream cakes, trips to the zoo, and even a new puppy. There was the Post-IVF Failure Quarantine Birthday of 2020, where we watched Belle Movies all day and ate takeout. There was the first birthday with our baby girls and just last month, our first family lake trip. Surprisingly enough, Jake has begun to look forward to his own birthdays over the years, as well. Friends have visited from Texas. We’ve eaten poorly made boxed carrot cake, sat through Lord of the Rings movie marathons, baked stuffed pizzas, and even unveiled a pricey gun safe in the hopes we’d need it soon, with small children running around.

Regardless, I’ve no doubt that Jake would let his birthdays slip by with little to no acknowledgement, were it not to humor me. With his quiet, stoic affection, though, he brainstorms ways to make the day special for himself, because he knows doing so is important to me. Whereas I see my own birthdays as a celebration of the adventures past and the welcoming of those to come, Jake’s are a celebration of the answering of those many fervently, even desperately, made prayers. This weekend, as Jake bathed our girls, after I sorted and folded laundry, I looked around and really acknowledged my life as it is, the life this man has helped me create.

Friday night, Jake and I hosted our bi-weekly game night, where we ate ourselves sick and laughed ourselves silly with friends in honor of his birthday. We spent Saturday getting lunch with our beautiful, hard-won babies, before hitting the local pumpkin patch, where we took pictures and all four played and laughed in a trough full of corn. We came home tired and dirty, with dried corn in our shoes, as the girls vacillated between fussing and giggling, having missed most of their naps for family fun. None of it had been a farce, staged for appearances in person or on social media. It was true contentment and joy, ending at the home we own, as a happy family unit. The house was clean and comfortable. There was plenty of food in the pantry and the bills were paid. I fed the girls and cleaned the kitchen, while Jake made soup to freeze for our new baby’s arrival. We discussed what movie we would watch and what kind of pizza we would order for our own private birthday celebration.

Compared to where I once was, my life is utter financially strained, middle-class bliss. There have been many times when I thought I would never have this. I prayed every night for half the man Jake is and God delivered. My husband is good, hardworking, funny, smart, ambitious, and an absolutely fabulous father. He’s a prideful, stubborn, know-it-all, who rarely shows any serious emotion, seldom apologizes, and drives me absolutely crazy. He’s also built a new career from the bottom, taken on every home improvement project I’ve dreamt up, financially supported us even through two rounds of IVF, and slept in an ICU chair for four days when I almost died delivering our girls. He’s gotten up in the middle of the night to clear the drains during a storm, chopped wood in freezing weather, and scraped my windshield without my asking. He’s changed countless diapers, soothed epic tantrums, and come home for lunch every day to help feed and play with his girls. He’s made it possible for me to stay home when I couldn’t handle leaving them. He’s comforted my every rational and irrational fear. Simply put, Jake is everything I ever prayed for and more.

We celebrated our first birthdays together when I turned 28, looking back on my single life; and when Jake turned 31, looking forward to new possibilities. My husband still isn’t one to anticipate his birthday with as much excitement as I do my own, but I find myself looking forward to it with increasing giddiness each passing year. I might have my very own holiday every September 9th, but every October 14th, I get to celebrate my best friend, whether that means cake and DnD or pizza and another viewing of the movie Warcraft. I get the chance to give my husband a day that’s all about him, where I can express my gratitude for the man that he is and the life he’s built with me. Jake wasn’t my way out, exactly, but he was the ultimate destination for a gal who wanted nothing more than a blissfully exhausting family life.

My mother once told me that she never minded getting older, until she no longer had anyone to do it with her. This past month, Jake and I celebrated our seventh set of birthdays together and with our girls: 35 and 38. I don’t mind those numbers even a little bit, as long as we get to celebrate the rest as a family, too.

Why I Love My Prideful, Stubborn, Pushy Husband

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Jake and I met in the summer of 2015, at 30 and 27. He was working as a fluid engineer an hour away, in an oil town. I was living in the suburbs, working as a half time librarian and enjoying a break from substitute teaching during the financially leaner summer months. We met online, during a time when the stigma had lifted just enough to make it ubiquitous, but not quite so much that everyone had become utterly jaded and exhausted by the entire process. Compared to the modern woes shared by my single friends, it seems 2015 was something of a Golden Age for online dating, when the majority of people approached it with some genuine sense of purpose. After all, if you were going to risk a coworker finding your profile, you were at least going to try to meet someone.

From the beginning, things with Jake were… uncomplicated. Essentially strangers, there was no immediate “spark” or “love at first sight” moment between us, because we weren’t the leads in a paranormal romance novel. I thought he was funny and had pretty eyes. I liked his beard. He thought I was cute and smart. We talked long enough for the restaurant to close for lunch and he texted within the next couple of hours to tell me he had a good time. We didn’t kiss until our sixth date, what with him having been my literal second of most things and eventual first of quite a few. He met my parents on my birthday and I met his on Halloween. I said I love you at four months and he immediately said it back. We first slept together after eight months, when we went skiing in New Mexico. That was the same weekend we hypothetically discussed marriage. By one year, we were making serious plans and that Thanksgiving, I had a ring. A week later, we’d set a date.

Just kidding… I was totally a prude.

We were married just shy of two years after that first date and bought our home a year later. Aside from the election year of back-to-back pandemic IVF cycles, followed by that time I almost died in childbirth, our relationship has gone pretty smoothly.

We’re genuinely happy.

We are each other’s best friends.

There is no one I’d rather see every single day, beyond my baby girls and my Gramma.

Still, quite often, he drives me absolutely mad.

As a former 23-year-old divorcee from a terrifying relationship, I can honestly say that I have never considered leaving Jake. I know what a bad marriage looks like and this ain’t it. That doesn’t mean we don’t fight. We met as whole people. We weren’t clueless youngsters from a Nicholas Sparks novel, embarking on an adventure together, with no idea what lay before us. We were grown adults possessing clearly set ideas about how the world works and the best way to approach it. We were and are both stubborn, opinionated, insufferable know-it-alls… and sometimes we clash.

Indeed, we do take pride in it.

Last night was just such a time. There’s no need to share the details of the fight, as I’m usually a firm believer that one shouldn’t air their dirty laundry in public, but I can assure you, Jake was in the wrong. I was the victim of course… though there may have been a throw pillow hurled in his direction, before I tearfully left to take a walk around the neighborhood. As I walked, pregnant and hormonal, I thought of all of Jake’s flaws. He’s stubborn, pushy, has the pride of ten men, and may or may not be a robot completely incapable of human emotion. Then I thought of all of my flaws. I’m often neurotic and high-strung, stressing out easily over inconsequential details. I, admittedly, have a flare for the dramatic and cry easily. Then, I acknowledged that combined, these flaws… actually complement each other quite well. Where I’m unsure and anxious, Jake is confident to the point of arrogance. In the midst of my stress, he’s always there with that Texan drawl, assuring me that “It’ll be alright”. While he takes few things too seriously, I highlight their urgency, sometimes quite necessarily. While he sits stoic, I rant about the injustice of the world. Despite our flaws, despite the fact that other people often wonder how, we do still fit. He is the string to my kite and remembering that, I began to think of all the reasons I love my husband.

He’s hardworking.
When Jake left oil, at my request, he started at the literal bottom working on sewer lines for the City of Cherokee. He made eleven dollars an hour, at a time when I was making more than double that, despite having a bachelor’s degree in hydrology and several years of oilfield experience. He took call shifts and worked all-nighters and never once complained or acted like it was beneath him. He spent his weekends helping his parents on the ranch. Even now, he spends a good deal of his time off doing chores around the house, helping me fulfill whatever grand new vision I’ve formed. He is truly the hardest working individual I’ve ever met.

He’s ambitious.
Five years after taking his $11 per hour position, Jake has a lengthy title that, summed up, means he’s the stormwater manager for the entire city. He spends his days explaining to engineers why their building permits were denied and rebuffing their attempts to resolve the whole “misunderstanding” with a sexist joke and a good ol’ boy handshake. He draws up plans, gives presentations, prepares for audits, and fights for budget items. Were I still working as a librarian, he would officially be making more money, just as I wagered he would five years ago. There have even been talks of him eventually becoming the director of public works. He will always strive for more. In the process, he’ll always take care of his family.

He’s responsible.
One of my requirements when dating, was to find someone who didn’t need me to be the grown up in the relationship. I didn’t want to have to budget someone else’s money and time, pick up after them, or nag them to do household chores. Sticker charts are for children, not adult men. While Jake and I sometimes disagree about which chores take priority, idle is not a word one could use to describe him. He is always working on some project, digging drains in our yard, tilling the garden, filling in holes the dogs dug, installing a closet kit or building shelves for the girls’ new bedroom. Not once in our marriage have I ever felt like he consistently failed to do his share.

He’s even-tempered.
On our third date, Jake and I met at a Fourth of July festival. He was at least thirty minutes late with no prior explanation, because his cell phone had died. I had seriously considered going home, but with no other holiday plans, I decided to stick around at least until it bordered on truly pathetic. When he arrived, I was flustered and awkward, having worried I’d been stood up again, so I forgot the blanket I’d brought to lay out until we were halfway to the other side of the park. I expected Jake to be annoyed at having to turn back, but he seemed entirely unphased. Growing up in a volatile household, this was a balm to the senses I’d never deliberately sought. Since the beginning, Jake has been cool-headed, rarely raising his voice or even getting angry. This stoicism occasionally presents itself as a lack of emotion or feeling overall, but day-to-day, it’s quite comforting to know that this marriage only includes one irrational partner.

He’s funny.
I’d met stoic, even-tempered men before Jake, but they all seemed to take themselves too seriously. Jake takes nothing seriously. While that sometimes drives me a little crazy, it works to my benefit as well. The man is nearly impossible to offend. I’ve only managed it once, when he came out dressed for his family’s Thanksgiving in a rodeo vest and cowboy hat. I’d never attended a holiday with him, so I didn’t realize this was how everyone in his family of cowboys and rodeo performers dressed for nice gatherings. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have offered to put on my Buzz Lightyear costume. Yet, in five years, that’s the only time I’ve hurt his feelings. As obnoxious as his borderline arrogance can be, Jake is confident enough for the most self-deprecating of jokes. He can laugh at himself, which makes it sting a lot less when he laughs at my own blunders and antics. I, myself, am not typically known for my gravity, which makes for a delightful marriage. Jake and I don’t even drive with the radio on, instead opting to talk and joke until we laugh ourselves sick. Being married to him is just fun. I love that my girls will witness that.

He’s a fantastic dad.
Growing up, my parents loved me. They just weren’t very good at it. As a result, I’ve sometimes doubted my ability to be the mom I hope to be, but I have not for a moment doubted Jake as a father. He’s never shied away from feedings, tantrums, or dirty diapers. Since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve struggled in the mornings, only recently able to get up with him. He’s taken on getting the girls fed and settled in their play yard before he leaves work for several months now. It’s not just the duties of parenthood at which he excels, though. It’s also the joys. Jake comes home for lunch every single day, cheerfully getting the girls up from their nap and helping to feed them, often taking the lead depending on how I feel or if I’m working on something else. When he comes home, it’s clear he can’t wait to see his little ladies, letting them crawl all over him, stealing his hat, badge, and phone. He loves being a father and he’s really good at it.

He’s masculine, without being chauvinistic.
When I was dating, I made a lot of exaggerative jokes about requiring a classically masculine man. A Real Man was Louis from Interview With a Vampire, crying one tear every thousand years. If he wasn’t a better shot than I was, he wasn’t a Real Man. Real Men didn’t drive sedans, but pickups. I’m sure I could search the early days of this blog for more examples. This was all hyperbole, of course. I’ve met some great guys who fit none of these descriptors. Manicured, well-pressed men just never did it for me. The catch, however, was that the men I described often came with antiquated, even downright offensive ideas of gender roles… until I met Jake. Jake cooks the majority of our meals. He never balks at changing a dirty diaper or cleaning a toilet. When I was working full time, he respected a career that most men I’d met openly mocked and we split the household chores 50/50. He’s not exactly one for flowery words, but now that I’m home, he frequently mentions how much we all benefit. He doesn’t belittle my contribution as a stay-at-home mom, make me qualify my time, or attempt to control our finances. I’ve also still never seen him cry and he’s a better shot than I am. Oh, and he drives a pickup.

He has never, not once, asked me to change.
My entire life, I’ve never quite felt like I belong. It’s difficult to say that without unintentional Breakfast Club emphasis, but I mean it without drama or angst. I’ve always operated on a slightly different frequency than everyone else, often unamused by popular comedy or overly interested in odd topics. I like to be around people, but get anxious around too many. I’m a homebody, but I never stop talking. I prefer crafts to sports, but frequently roll my eyes at what passes for art. I’m too conservative for liberal circles, too liberal for conservative circles, and too opinionated to keep my mouth shut. I’ve zero interest in the personality tests that attempt to make me feel better about such attributes and will overzealously cite studies about how they’re complete and utter hogwash. I’m too quiet at times, too loud at others. I always choose the wrong moment to share that anecdote about Pablo Escobar’s hippo menagerie taking over Columbia.

In the last seven years, though, I’ve realized that all of this is okay. I don’t need to fit in with the mean girls of my twenties. I don’t have to pretend to possess a political bent when I don’t. It doesn’t actually matter if I bring up the legalization of marijuana with the wrong audience. Jake has never once asked me to change anything about myself. From my weight, to my hair, to my volume, to my beliefs, to my interests, to my poise, to my temperament. Jake has never criticized me or been embarrassed by my awkwardness or clumsiness. He’s never asked me to be anything other than exactly who I am, so the least I can do, is offer him the same courtesy and love him, flaws and all.

Here’s to Five Years

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Almost seven years ago, on June 9, 2015, Jake and I arranged to meet at a sushi place in Springfield, just north of my hometown of Shetland. I remember the date, not just because I remember all of the dates, but because it was my Gramma’s birthday and she was my next stop.

At 27, having been divorced for four years, I was growing weary of the dating scene, though I hadn’t yet begun to approach truly desperate. What had once been a fun and exciting experience had become tedious and redundant over the years. While I largely preferred online to organic dating, simply for the screening it allowed, the process had become unchanging. I’d talk to a man for a few days to a week. We’d schedule a time to meet in a public place. I’d determine we were incompatible for some reason. I’d blow him off with varying degrees of politeness. On rare occasion, I was being a diva, but most of the time my reasons were entirely valid. The day I met Jake, I was more or less over it. I didn’t want any more first dates that ended with my return to my single girl apartment, where I’d thumb through profiles I’d already seen a dozen times. I wanted to move on with my life, start the next adventure. Then I met Jake.

Ha. I jest. Jake and I didn’t have a Love at First Sight moment, because life is not a poorly written historical romance. No, we just had… a really good date. He more or less looked like his pictures, was funny, found my awkwardness endearing, and didn’t seem to be turned off by the fact that I just could not stop talking. He thought I was cute, was pleasantly surprised that I was as… loquacious as I was for a librarian, and enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t afraid to talk back to him. An hour or so after we went our separate ways, I received a text telling me that he had a good time and would like to see me again…

… and two years later we were married on May 6, 2017 after a courtship which was surprisingly easy in nearly every way. Sure, we had our spats, but overall, we were shockingly well-matched for the cowboy and the librarian. Our tastes were just similar enough to enjoy things together, yet different enough to introduce each other to new interests and entertain ourselves separately. We shared goals and worldviews and it was always just… easy.

On our wedding day, I never experienced a single moment of doubt that Jake was the best decision I’d ever made. It was a perfect day, right down to the weather, as my dad turned to me and told me I’d picked a good one this time. It was right and it has been right every day since…

… but after celebrating five years or marriage, I can’t say that it’s always been easy. In fact, 2020 would rank as the most difficult year of my life if the ends hadn’t justified the means… and if it hadn’t been for Jake and his complete and total acceptance and strength. He is the string to my kite and while he’s certainly not perfect, he is perfect for me, the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I used to lie in bed at night, every door locked, with a loaded gun in a sock in the bed next to me, praying that the next man would be a good one. After the devastation that was the one and only relationship I’d ever had, I prayed that God would see fit to bring me a Godly man who was hard working, funny, intelligent, and would be a good husband and father. I didn’t need a hero from one of my romance novels. I needed someone real, someone who would compliment my own personality… and on June 9, 2015, I found him. It was my 21st first date and little did I know that I’d meet my very best friend.

The last year has been kind to us, overall. We welcomed our baby girls into the world and I spent the year regaining my strength after that terrifying ordeal. We realized that my staying home was the best choice for our family and fully embraced parenthood. We have had so much fun with each other and our girls. I never thought marriage could be this amazing and I’m certainly looking forward to the next five years.

Year Four: When I Fell in Love All Over Again

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Every year, for the past four, I’ve written a blog post around my wedding anniversary and only last year did it veer from that main subject on my Belle of Infertility page.

Year 1: What ACTUALLY Worked for Us in the First Year – “That’s my final claim to success in our first year of marriage: we checked in with each other on how we saw the second year, the third year, the fourth, because we’ve got a lot of years ahead of us and the plans are bound to change a hundred times… but it’s made it a lot less earth shattering to no longer be doing my rewrite alone, to be on the same page as my apocalypse buddy.”

Year 2: Two Vitally Important Years – “We both have pretty big personalities and, therefore, may have a lifetime of brawls ahead of us… but we’ll never have to worry that we haven’t met our match.”

Year 3: Coping (Belle of Infertility) – “I overcame so much and now I have to be Infertility Girl?!?! As if that’s not enough, my options are now postponed indefinitely due to a global pandemic?!?!“

This year, officially two days into my third trimester with two baby girls, I look back on the last year and… zetus lapetus it had some highs and lows.

One year ago today, on our third anniversary, Jake and I got the call informing us of an IVF start date of July 18th after months of tears (mine) over the postponement of all elective procedures. By that time this year, those tears will have turned to ones of pure exhaustion as we try to figure out this baby thing… twice.

We spent our fourth year of marriage in lockdown, only leaving the house for work, grocery shopping, and occasional walks around the neighborhood, or the park if we were feeling particularly daring. We focused our energy and finances on fixing up our house… and making some very expensive babies, which I suppose means we also left the house for a lot of doctor’s appointments.

Pandemic IVF was certainly the most difficult trial of our marriage so far. While for me, 2020 made the top three on the list of the worst years of my life, I’m certain it ranked as number one for Jake. Regardless, it made us closer. During a time when the rest of the world seemed to be rethinking their marriages, ours seem to grow stronger. Jake has always been something of a hardass. I joke that I married Red Foreman of That 70’s Show. When we watched The Boys on Amazon, I realized that I found it deeply attractive that Butcher was such an asshole to everyone he met, but had such a soft spot for his wife and treated her with such tenderness.

Me: “Huh. I find it really hot that Butcher is such a dick to everyone but his wife. What does that say about you? What does that say about me?”

Jake helped his parents run a sprawling cattle ranch his whole life. His first job entailed working grueling hours in a grain elevator at 16. After that, he worked rodeos with his uncle. He drove a truck before entering the oil field, as a fluid engineer. He’s a manual laborer and a supervisor. Soft… isn’t really his thing. He’s not great with empathy and if you’d asked me how he’d handle my mental state in 2020, two years ago, I’m not sure what I’d have said… because 2020 was the year I completely fell apart… several times.

The last time I was as poorly off as I was in 2020, learning that I might not be able to have children and would have to go through IVF during an unprecedented global pandemic, I was divorcing Joffrey Baratheon at 23-years-old. There were a few days last year when I didn’t even get out of bed. I didn’t watch TV or read. I stared at the wall and thought about a future without a family, about the resentment that might grow between Jake and I, about losing him because of it, about being all alone. I thought about my parents and how different things could have been if they’d waited until their 30s to have kids, when they were stable in their careers and their finances and had had their fun during their twenties. I thought about how much I love my husband and how much fun we have together and how much healthier my outlook on romance would have been had I seen that in my parents. I thought about all that we had built together and not being able to share it with anyone.

When I was able to be more productive and positive, going on long walks, reading, binging Netflix shows, and taking on craft projects, I still didn’t eat for long stretches and rarely slept. At one point, I averaged an hour a night. I tried drinking to sleep and that… went badly. After my second or third drunken breakdown, I asked Jake what he thought of my getting a medical marijuana card for the anxiety, since I was unwilling to take any sort of medication after being prescribed 250 mg of Wellbutrin from ages 13-18, because my mother couldn’t handle me. It was something of an investment, but he agreed it was worth a try and I could finally sleep. Even when suffering from depression, THC gummies render you too lethargic to do anything about it and that helped me through the summer… through the failed pregnancy test that followed our first $15,000 IVF cycle, through the dread of the second cycle two months later.

… and all the while, Jake was there, when the pandemic meant no one else could be, whether they wanted to or not. In another year, my step-mother would have loved to take me shopping, my dad would have made me laugh with crass jokes over lunch, my step-siblings would have come to a cookout. All of this would have distracted me from our fertility troubles, but in 2020, not only was I heartbroken that I’d potentially never have a family of my own, I was isolated from everyone but Jake… and he was surprisingly up to the task. When necessary, he sat by my side on the bed and read articles on his phone, while I lay unresponsive. He took care of me when that Whiskey Sleep Therapy idea failed so miserably. He went for walks with me when I felt well enough, laughed with me, grabbed curbside takeout, watched movies and shows, helped me with household projects, and played board games with me when I was up to it, always ready and willing to hold me while I cried when the tides suddenly turned. He never made me feel bad for feeling bad and he was always willing to have a good time when I was able. My relentless hardass husband, who’s never been stellar with empathy, was absolutely my rock through 2020.

For my part, I’d love to acknowledge the strength it took to survive the trials of the last year. and I’m sure I would were it anyone else, but I will forever fear turning into my mother, a weak and pitiful woman, who loves being weak and pitiful. Needing Jake as much as I did often made me feel worse, like I was draining him and was too much of a burden. He hadn’t signed on for a wife who crumbled so thoroughly and seeing how strong he was through it all made me feel pathetic. Self-loathing added to my heartache and I often worried that 2020, as a whole, would scar me so badly that there wouldn’t be much of a wife or mother left.

Jake reinforced none of these ideas, though. He comforted me and supported me and encouraged me all year and through both IVF rounds. He kept track of my medications and administered subcutaneous shots and intramuscular shots, well over 100 by the end of the year. He sat in the car during doctor’s appointments and surgeries. He drove me to my monitoring visits during an ice storm. He celebrated with me at 4:00 a.m., when I got a positive pregnancy test and waited in the car during my ultrasound to find out if we were having one baby or two. He rejoiced over the premature news that we were having two boys and once again, over two girls, when the blood test came back. He fought with me over names and painted the baby’s room five times over Valentine’s Day, because the pink I chose was lighter than the beige that was there. He’s built shelves and hung curtains and redone the closet and assured me more than once that I will not be my mother.

Our fourth year of marriage was not an easy one, but it did, indeed make us stronger. In 2020, I saw something in Jake I’d never seen before, a tenderness and compassion I never saw my father hold for my mother and I honestly didn’t expect to see so soon. It may have been a tough year, but it made me fall in love with my hardass husband all over again.

Do Something Nice for Your Spouse

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When Jake and I got engaged, I frequently ranted about how generic all of the marriage advice sounded. Three and a half years later, I feel just as strongly that if you haven’t discussed finances or kids or familial boundaries, you have no business even getting engaged. I also firmly believe that “never go to bed angry,” is the single worst advice ever for two incredibly strong-willed individuals. “Continue arguing, no matter how exhausted you become” sounds like a great recipe for mariticide.

Now, here we are in 2020, the worst year ever for planet Earth, and I find the best marriage advice I can possibly suggest, is to concentrate more on what you give than what you get, with the obligatory disclaimer that this only applies to healthy relationships and not those who are married to lazy scoundrels.

Y’all, 2020 has hit hard and if anything, it has made me love Jake more. He’s string to my kite and I can’t give him enough credit for his unwavering strength and support through the breakdowns and the days when I just can’t get out of bed. So, when I have it in me, I do what I can to give back, in the following ways:

Doing Things He’d Never Consider

When Jake visited his parents the weekend before last, I did my best to keep myself busy, feeling as though being alone with my thoughts was the most dangerous place on Earth, even during a pandemic. So, I decorated for Halloween and updated my annual photo album. I went through some old pictures, trashing many, and made copies of others, for Jake and my Gramma. I filled the remaining slots in the photo collage dedicated to Jake’s pre-Belle days. I finally went through that box of wedding cards and realized I could use them to fill up the pages of our nearly empty guest book. I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and purchased some Thanksgiving decorations and a glass block frame for our wedding invitation, because there’s no point saving something that’s not displayed. I bought another frame for the blackout poetry I made in my first year at the Cherokee library and some reasonably priced decor to round off our his and hers bedroom theme, so Jake’s side looked more masculine. I bought pumpkins and a hay bale for the porch, replaced some old plants, donated books I’ll never read, and bought supplies to make Jake a pizza when he got home. He couldn’t have pinpointed these things, but he was pleased as I showed him how hard I’d worked to make our home more comfortable and inviting, in ways he’d have never considered.

Keeping the House Clean and Even Doing His Chores

Jake and I have split our household duties, as opposed to trading off, so we never have to argue about taking turns. So, while he was away, I took the liberty to do not only my share, but his. I cleared off the porch, emptying the bags of potting soil into the planters and cleaning up the dead elephant ears in the vegetable garden. I did the dishes and wiped down the kitchen counters. I went grocery shopping and organized the pantry and refrigerator. I swept and vacuumed and replaced the waxes in the burners so the house would smell nice. I cleared off the dining room table and made sure all of his laundry was done and the sheets were clean. Many of these things fell under the heading of Jake’s responsibilities, but I figure if he can sit quietly with me through a bad weekend and put off visiting his family, so I wouldn’t be alone, I could make his life just a little easier on a good one. Even when he’s home, I do my best to follow old and new routines, by switching the towels on Tuesday and Thursday and Sunday, watering the plants on Thursday and Sunday, making the bed every day, and washing the bedding every two weeks. Considering the fact that we have literally nowhere else to go, this has been vitally important to our mental health in the dumpster fire that is 2020.

Giving Him Video Game Time, Sans Nagging

When Jake comes home from work, he often either does chores or plays videogames and one of the ways I’ve tried to make his life more enjoyable, during a tough year, is to be more forgiving of the latter. I’ve never been a videogame hater, but I do consider them a massive waste of time, comparable to my romance novels and teen shows (though these actually make me better at my job), so in excess, I find them pretty obnoxious. During a pandemic, however, I’ve worked to redefine my internal definition of “excess.” What else is he supposed to be doing with his time? During a normal year, he usually only plays video games a few days a week, especially during Daylight Savings Time, but… this ain’t normal. Sure, there are some projects he could work on around the house, but that’s a lot to ask of someone who’s been working a very stressful new job all day. So, each night, after we’ve watched a movie or show or gone on a walk, I try not to give Jake too much grief when he wants to spend some quality time with his XBOX again, especially when it’s a social event, because he’s playing online with my step-brother or his old oil buddies.

Doing Thoughtful Little Things

Jake is not good with “thank you.” He sucks at “please,” too, as a matter of fact. I see why, when I visit his family and not a single person utters such pleasantries. It’s as if they think that family doesn’t need these formalities, but it drives me batty. How hard is it to show just a little bit of basic gratitude?!?! This year, however, I’m trying to do more nice little things for Jake, regardless of the lack of praise. I get him his favorite movies from work, make his lunch if I get home first, surprise him with a Monster drink or a Dr. Pepper, and unload the dishwasher so he doesn’t have to do it on his lunch break. I buy him the gum and coffee beans he likes and a bag of bulk chili mango slices, which I’m not only allergic to, but find absolutely disgusting. With or without verbal thanks, I know these things make Jake feel loved and appreciated and I’m doing my best to do them more often.

Cherishing the Little Bit of Normalcy That is Staying Cute

This year isn’t going to be any easier on either of us, if we both get fat and sloppy. In fact, that would make next year suck, too. While I’ve essentially stopped wearing makeup, for the time being, because it seems like a waste when half my face is always covered, I’ve done my best to maintain my fairly low-maintenance beauty routine of shaving my legs and using the fancy conditioner (fancy still means $3) on Thursday and Sunday, keeping my skin as clear as I can when it’s often covered by a mask, trimming my bangs, and once again dressing cute and professional for work. I’ve spent some of the money we’ve saved this year on new dresses and shoes from Kohl’s and Old Navy and thrown out anything ratty or torn. I’m hardly dressed to the nines, but I also refuse to make my life any more difficult by gaining 30 pounds or getting into the habit of lounging around dressed like a slovenly mess. It makes both Jake and I feel a little better to recapture the normalcy that is not living in athletic shorts and a tank top, as I did during our six week lockdown.

Giving Him the Best Birthday I Can

My Red Panda turns 36 next week and I’m going to give him the best birthday I possibly can, in a year when Earth is still only varying degrees of open. I’ve been saving for several months to buy Jake a new 30 gun safe, a long time goal of his. I’ve read the first in The Fellowship of the Ring, so we can watch it together and I’ll know what’s happening. I’ve gathered a few small surprises. I’ve got a plan in place to get his favorite cake and I’m going to make him his favorite cookies. This weekend will be all about him. Whatever he wants to do, that we’re able to do we will. My birthday was a little underwhelming, but I’ll do my best to give my favorite cowboy whatever I can.

This has been a hard year, folks. While I don’t claim that my values or emphasis are universal and fully understand that there are many different kinds of marriages, I encourage you to do something nice for your spouse, whatever that may be, expecting nothing in return. We all need someone right and it’s the luckiest of us who have our best friend with us each and every day.

What I Love About Jake

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I watched Netflix’s Emmy nominated Marriage Story, last week. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the tale of two people, who were somehow both overindulgent and selfish parents, going through the most privileged divorce ever… but I also can’t say that’s an inaccurate portrayal of most divorcing parents regardless of income, either. One thing I did enjoy, however, was the opener. Each spouse listed the things they loved about each other, as a part of a counseling or mediation session. Why do we, as married people, only do this as a Save the Marriage measure? Why not now? So here goes. What I love about Jake.

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It has always been easy.
Jake and I met on a Tuesday afternoon, for sushi. I tried to talk him into coffee, just in case we didn’t hit it off, but he insisted. I’ve never claimed to have experienced some kind of spark or love at first sight, because this is not a paranormal romance novel, but the conversational chemistry was instant. We shared our core values, alongside humorous anecdotes with ease. We talked and laughed so long, the waitstaff had to ask us to leave, so they could close between the lunch and dinner hour.

When things started getting a little physical, I told him one night that since he hadn’t called me his girlfriend, I was going to keep my clothes on, thank you very much… and then I was his girlfriend. I asked him to join my parents and me for dinner on my birthday and he enthusiastically agreed. He asked me to meet his family and then his friends, to go skiing with him. We began discussing marriage at a year and I had a ring at a year and a half. We had a short engagement, rented for a year before buying a house, paid things off before agreeing to try for babies. We have just always been on the same page, at the same time. It seems as though, after all I’d been through before him, God saw fit to make my second relationship… easy. 

He takes me exactly as I am.
Y’all Jake is the life of every party, both charming and funny and if he’s not someone’s cup of tea, he literally could not care less. The last time he cried was his senior year of high school and I’m pretty sure that was also the last time he was embarrassed. He is everything I am not. I’m a very emotional person. I can have fits of crippling anxiety, go on lengthy rants about everything from the movie Titanic to censorship in libraries, and burst into tears because my husband ate my fortune cookie. Just yesterday, Jake came home for lunch to find me on the couch crying over In Cold Blood, because this tragedy happened to real people and they must have been so scared and even the dog was scared… and you know what? He hugged me as I cried and genuinely consoled me. There was no mockery or laughter, just agreement that maybe true crime is not my genre. 

Jake has never, not once, made me feel as though he’s embarrassed or ashamed of me, whether I’ve asked him just a little too loudly if he was checking out that waitress’s butt or nearly gotten both of our butts kicked for throwing M&M’s in a movie theater. He’s never insulted my weight or appearance or suggested I wear something else if we’re going out, even if that means I’m wearing a hand crocheted Christmas tree hat. He’s never shamed me for my tears, despite his lack thereof. I’m clumsy, nonathletic, far from outdoorsy, awkward, and sometimes too loud… and he has made it clear, from that very first date, that he likes me, very much, just as I am.

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He’s cheerful.
As great a likeness to Ron Swanson as Jake may have, he is generally a very even-tempered man. It takes a lot to truly rile him and, although he’ll go on and on about how Cherokee doesn’t need a Starbucks and this country needs a flat tax and how everyone sucks at Call of Duty, he’s not one to complain about his lot in life. After leaving a high paying position in oil, at my request, Jake got a job working for the City of Cherokee, where he’s been for three years. He literally spends days trudging through raw sewage and he never complains. When he calls his mom and she’s in a terrible mood and quite unpleasant, he rarely comments. If I text him and ask him to pick up shredded cheese and my prescription, they’ll be there when I get home. He tends to roll with the punches and do it with a smile and a joke, which is not my strong suit.

He’s hardworking and ambitious.
Jake likes to work. His “hobby” is working in the yard. He likes fixing things and starting projects. His is much more of a brute force energy than a creative energy, like mine, but the man can get things done. I dream it and he does it. Pair that with his good ol’ boy personality and even-tempered willingness to play the game and he’s already moved up with the city. I suspect one day he’ll own his own business or run his own cattle. Regardless, I know he’ll always provide for us, which is not something I’ve always had in life.

He doesn’t conform to traditional gender stereotypes.
Jake isn’t just hardworking in his career field. He’s a doer at home, as well. More often than not, he spends his lunch breaks cleaning the kitchen and immediately starts working in the yard when he gets home, on a nice day. In the middle of a conversation, he’ll grab the push broom and sweep the great room. He feeds the dogs and takes them to the vet, if I’ll just schedule the appointment. He’s the only reason things are actually clean, as opposed to just looking clean. When his mother comments, in her horror at Jake’s suggestion that he needs to clean the windows, “You mean Belle hasn’t don it?” he tells her “Mom, we both work 40 hours a week. We pretty much split the household duties.” When she concludes “Well… I guess you two do things differently than we do,” Jake simply responds “Yup. I guess we do.” 

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He doesn’t hold grudges.
As is destined to happen in a marriage of stubborn individuals, Jake and I have had some pretty heated disagreements. Last summer, I got the news that my grandmother had fallen and gone to the hospital, while I was at work. I didn’t call Jake, because we were in the middle of some argument or another and I didn’t think he’d feel like consoling me. When I got home, I barely spoke to him, which he naturally read as the silent treatment and went to work in the yard. He came inside to find I’d fallen asleep in front of my comfort show, Star Trek: TOS, and realized this was no silly tiff. He asked if something had happened and I tearfully explained that my grandmother had fallen and I wasn’t there to help her. He asked why I hadn’t called him and I told him that I didn’t think he’d want to hear from me. He assured me that that was never true and I could always call on him.

Jake has proven the above statement time and again, most recently last weekend, when he was angry that I’d demanded he go sleep on the couch after my dental surgery, because I couldn’t sleep due to the pain and his snoring was making it even more difficult. At 4:00 in the morning I came in to ask him if he could call his parents later to see if they had any stronger pain medication and he invited me to lay on top of him while I cried. No matter how bad the quarrel, if I’m hurt or upset about something unrelated, it’s as if it never happened.

He’s gentle.
I think one of the things that attracts me to Jake the most is that as tough as he is, he can be incredibly gentle… with me, the cat, the dogs, his nieces. While I’ve never seen him start a fight, I have no doubt he could finish one, but he treats me with the greatest care, not just physically, but emotionally, as well. When I tell him I feel neglected for his video games or that it feels like we only watch the things he wants to watch, he listens. When I cry over a book, he holds me. When I’m anxious at a party, he talks to me.

He’s a Christian.
One of the fundamentals of my dating search was common religious beliefs. I didn’t need to meet a Catholic, but I had to meet a Christian who was open to Catholicism, which can be a tall order in the South. Jake was more or less lapsed when we met, but in the past three years, he’s grown a great deal in his faith, attending Mass and bible study with me. When I’ve gotten down about dissolved friendships, he’s been there to remind me that they weren’t good people and didn’t make me a better Christian. Neither of us is perfect, but it’s wonderful to have someone with whom to move in the right direction.

He is dedicated to this marriage.
I, of all people, know that it takes two to make a marriage and you simply cannot make another person commit (or be sane, but that’s a different post), so I’m not throwing stones at divorcees in my glass house, but I have every confidence that Jake will never suggest divorce. He might be a relentless buttface sometimes, but he’ll never cheat on me. He’ll never get a drug or gambling addiction. I’ve never seen a man as attached to their wedding ring as Jake, who religiously switches out the golden band I gave him on our wedding day with his rubber work band each morning and back again each afternoon. He doesn’t look at pornography or visit strip clubs and he doesn’t make crass jokes against our marriage with his coworkers. He is all in and so am I, because Jake is the best decision I have ever made.

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What ACTUALLY Worked for Us in Our First Year

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Y’all, married people love to give marriage advice. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been married or how dysfunctional their own relationship is, no married person will ever miss the opportunity to pass on their wisdom, not unlike the relatively new parents of a poorly behaved toddler.

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It seems everyone had marriage advice, this time last year and all of it was generalized and just… kind of lame. The Ravenclaw in me even went in search of true marital wisdom, scouring blogs and books and Huffpost articles, desperate to reveal a unique perspective that just fit for Jake and I, but to no avail. Just last month, I kept my ears perked at my new sister-in-law’s Breakfast with the Bride, hoping to leave with some valuable insight, only to receive the somewhat confusing advice that “If you’re going to fight, fight naked.” The only thing I actually learned from any of my studies is that middle class white women really like platitudes.

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I (like every other bride of one year) think I have it figured out, though. The reason all this marriage advice sucks so much, is because you can’t advise the masses on something so personal. Different people have different needs and my true marital advice probably wouldn’t make a motivational poster for the family therapist’s office that could compete with the likes of “Never go to bed angry.”* So, as Jake and I celebrate our one year anniversary and three years since we met, here are the things that we did to make it all more enjoyable.

*Zetus lapetus, this is the worst advice ever. If we didn’t go to bed angry, sometimes, we wouldn’t go to bed. Occasionally, we have to agree to shut the fuck up, before we say something we’ll regret later.

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We worried both less and more about privacy. 

I’ve written before about Jake and I’s vows not to watch pornography. Summed up, while there are moral reasons, we agree that in 2018, it’s just too addictive and we don’t need to court that kind of complication in our relationship. Married at 29 and 32, however, neither of us claims to have never enjoyed porn, nor that we’re no longer tempted. We’re both human and humans have urges. As husband and wife, though, we’ve decided that it is our job to hold each other accountable for being good people, and it’s still 2018.

Ultimately, we’ve agreed to a mutual lack of technological privacy. We don’t keep our phones from each other, clear our search history/use incognito pages, or delete all of our text messages, because that’s where secrets form. Even our more conservative and traditional friends view this as a lack of trust, but for us, the opposite is true. I trust that Jake won’t look through my search history (spoiler alert: lots of cat photos). He trusts that I won’t monitor his texts. Knowing, however, that either of us are welcome to use each other’s phones, to find that text message with the date and time of the party, Google the bank’s routing number, settle a debate on the pronunciation of a word… even a year in, this has kept us in check, because we are flawed and in a lifetime, we will make mistakes. 

In addition to less privacy from each other, we’ve placed an emphasis on more privacy from the world. After I left social media, I realized how damaging it could have become to my marriage. Instead of simply enjoying a night out with my husband, I put energy into showing people that I was enjoying a night out with my husband. My social media persona was never false, but it did require energy… energy that could have been spent on my actual life, instead of my virtual one. I never acknowledged just how much effort I put into all of this, because as a millennial, I’ve had some form of online presence since I was 11. I have grown up in a crowded hallway, constantly available to everyone from the vegan food truck owner who moved to Canada and loves to debate healthcare with me, to that guy in my high school biology class who likes to trade horror movie recommendations. Those connections are so much more draining than we think. Denying tidbits of intimacy to these frivolous surface level friendships has made me so much closer to my husband. The privacy involved in going out to dinner truly alone, in arguing without input from my very own Teen Girl Squad, in taking photos that my distant relatives will never see… is unbelievably intimate. Honestly, I have no doubt that one day, I will look back and see that quelling my online presence has saved my marriage.

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We spent time together, separately, and together doing separate things. 

Jake is my best friend. Truly. He’s the only person I want in my space at the end of a bad day, the boy who knows all my flaws and secrets and loves me anyway. We have so much fun together, going to movies and festivals, hiking, bike riding, shooting guns, playing board games, battling each other in old school Nintendo games, arguing about social and moral issues, discussing articles we’ve read… but we had a lot of fun before all of that, too.

Y’all, during the summers when I worked at the library 20 hours a week and lived off of my substitute teacher savings, I used to wake up at ten o’clock, roll over and continue reading the romance novel I’d fallen asleep with for two more hours, lay out by my apartment’s pool, come inside to eat snack foods for dinner, while binge watching Vampire Diaries and sewing into the wee hours of the morning. I’d crawl into bed at 3:00, wake up and repeat. It. Was. Awesome. Jake has similarly self-proclaimed awesome tales (some of them quite appalling) and was equally ready to move on to the next stage of life, but in some sense (a toned-down one), those people are still here. Jake still wants to play video games or watch YouTube reviews and I still want to read trashy paranormal romance novels and crochet. One of the best things we do for each other, as a married couple, is to still enjoy those things… together, but separately.

Often times, after tough days at work, or on a lazy Saturday, we’ll sit on the couch and indulge in our own silly hobbies… independently. To the outsider, it might look as though we’re completely ignoring each other as Jake shoots aliens and I read about their intergalactic seduction, but every half hour or so, he’ll hit pause before another match and touch my legs in his lap, and tell me he loves me. I’ll finish a chapter, nudge him on the arm with a toe, and he’ll look over to see me mouth that he’s my favorite. We’ll go back to our guilty pleasures, absolutely content in the knowledge that the other person is enjoying themselves.

I’d argue that it’s been just as important for us, though, to spend the occasional time apart. Fortunately, the house we just bought is close enough to each of our workplaces to come home for lunch and we tend to take them an hour apart. Counting the hour I have before work and the hour he has after work, on an almost daily basis, we each get about an hour and 45 minutes to do as we please… but that can only accommodate so much. While Jake and I usually visit his hometown together, every three or four months, Jake will take a weekend to cross state lines and explore his old stomping grounds. He helps his parents on the ranch, goes fishing and hunting, hangs out with his old friends… and I get to be 24-year-old Belle again; staying up all night (despite having to work the next day), dancing to bad 2013 pop music I just discovered, reading trashy novels, and marathoning Twilight, Fifty Shades, or every single Nicholas Sparks movie on Netflix. We have so much fun apart, for just long enough to miss each other and it’s just an absolutely wonderful, rejuvenating vacation to our twenty-something selves.

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We’ve touched base on our timelines.

Jake and I have a deal. When the apocalypse comes, it’s his job to get us to safety and it’s my job to organize the supplies when we get there, because I am The Girl With the Plan. My whole life, I’ve had a plan… ‘cept for those few blurry years after high school and we all know how that ended… which is precisely why I became even more determined to follow my path, not my Gramma’s or my dad’s or feminists’ everywhere, but Belle’s. I was well aware of the scoffing. I did what I wanted, regardless, and I must say, it’s turned out pretty damned well. That doesn’t mean there was never any rewriting, though and in the first year of our marriage, Jake and I did a little rewriting of our own… together.

If I recall, one year ago, our plan was to live in our rental house for a couple of years, while building our careers and funds for a down payment on a home of our own. Around the time we started looking for homes, this time next year, we’d start trying for a baby and ideally, we would be moved in and comfortable before growing our family. Well, that all got a little… muddled. I’m not sure when the shifts happened and maybe that’s my point, that they weren’t profound moments, but rather the results of frequent conversations and dreamings and musings, because for the first time in my life, I don’t have to make the plan alone. Together, we mused over the cost of renting, rising interest rates, down payment options, and at some point, we decided to bump up this huge portion of the plan by a full year… and we did so successfully.

Riding high on said success, we decided to bump up kids by nearly a year, too. I mean, if we were going to be in our own home, why not? I do remember when that suggestion was ultimately overruled, however, three weeks before our move, when I had something of a meltdown, weeping to Jake about how I just wasn’t ready for babies and didn’t think I would be in six months, either. It’s just too much: too much change, too much responsibility, too much of a financial burden, and I just can’t commit to it in 2018… and it was and is okay, because Jake’s not the only one who makes the plan anymore either. That’s my final claim to success in our first year of marriage: we checked in with each other on how we saw the second year, the third year, the fourth, because we’ve got a lot of years ahead of us and the plans are bound to change a hundred times… but it’s made it a lot less earth shattering to no longer be doing my rewrite alone, to be on the same page as my apocalypse buddy.

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No one ever told me that marriage is awesome.

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One of my favorite holiday traditions is seeing a movie with my family on Christmas Eve. Amidst all the traditional, somewhat formal (occasionally forced) merriment, we all take a break to do something fun and normal. My stepmom buys out a row at the nicest theater in town and packs goodie bags of candy for everyone. Initially, Jake hated this idea, insisting that going to the movies wasn’t enough of a Christmas activity. While he still doesn’t quite get the appeal, he’s accepted that, at least until we have a baby, we’ll gather with my family, on the night before Christmas, to take a break from carols and baked goods and eat processed sweets and popcorn, while enjoying the latest Blockbuster.

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This year’s movie choice was Jumanji, much to my delight, as I’d turned down the opportunity to see an advance showing in the hopes that this would be a our Christmas choice. In addition to Lena’s goodie bag, I snuck in a Caffeine Free Diet Coke and a family sized bag of Christmas M&M’s and settled in, like the extra from Roseanne that I am. The movie was hilarious, with just the right amount of mockery aimed at its teenaged cast, something to which I’m particularly sensitive in my job title as teen librarian. Then, the inevitable happened: the woman in front of me and to the left pulled out her phone.

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Now, in my defense, this woman was not calling 911. She wasn’t even checking a notification that might have been urgent. I could clearly see that she was looking at Facebook. That’s all I can really say, though, because I don’t know what happened, y’all. It’s like I was taken over by 16-year-old Belle, as I chucked an M&M at this stranger. Of course, 30-year-old Belle immediately reclaimed my body, just in time to realize what she’d just done.

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Luckily, my survival instincts kicked in and I dove into Jake’s side and snuggled up to him, as if we’d been that way the whole time. From the corner of my eye, I watched in horror as this woman sat up, spoke to the man next to her, turned around and craned her neck to seek out the M&M thrower… and I realized she was much larger than I am… and so was her date.

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No, no, no, no, no, I cannot back this up. Undo it!

It was at this point, that I realized this could go bad fast, so I caught Jake up to speed in whispers.

Me: “Hey, I don’t know how this is gonna go, but that woman was playing with her phone, so I threw an M&M at her and she looks really mad. I love you.”

Jake shushed me and pulled me closer as the woman continued to search for the culprit. Finally, she sat back down and we all turned our attention to The Rock and Jack Black, in their teenage roles. After some time, Jake leaned over to me to me ask where I’d put the M&M’s and I told him they were in my purse. That was probably for the best, because it wasn’t 10 minutes later that the same woman pulled her phone back out and continued scrolling through Facebook. 

Me: “Can I throw another M&M at her?”
Jake: “No. Be quiet and watch the movie.”

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When the credits rolled, Jake grabbed my hand and we were the first two out of the theater, while my family lagged behind. He explained that he’d been going over different scenarios in his head for how things could go south, with his number one  concern being that the movie would end and the couple would turn around to see me with a bag of M&M’s in my lap, so he’d wanted to get us both out as soon as possible. That’s right, folks. My husband saved me from my own juvenile impulsivity, when he could have just bolted, himself.

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As the new year took hold, I decided to get a jump start on one of our goals, so on January 2nd, I called a mortgage lender. While we aren’t planning to buy a house until our lease is up in June, I wanted to secure financing and things somehow… snowballed. The second was on a Tuesday and by Friday, we were sitting down with the lender, discussing our pre-approval. So, on the way home, we went over the normal hypotheticals that come with the news that you can buy a house in two months… and within 72 hours, I was hyperventilating over math.

If we wait to service the cars and get the dogs current on their shots, then we can put approximately $2,000 aside in January and another $2,000 aside in February. That gives us $9,000, plus whatever Jake gets for his silver and our combined tax returns, which is optimistically $3,000, and we’re still $3,000 shy of the $15,000 the realtor says we need for a 3.5% down payment and closing costs. What if we don’t get our tax returns in time, though? My coworker didn’t get her return until December last year, which would put us $5,000 below our target and then what would we do?!?!?

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Having made the appointments with the lender and the real estate agent and gathered all of the documentation, myself, I was frustrated with the lack of assistance… overwhelmed by the financial stress and irritated with Jake’s laissez-faire attitude… perturbed by his negative comments about every house I liked… and of course, the inevitable happened and I revealed my crazy.

Me: “You’re not helping! You’re just being the super chill, cool guy, while I do everything and you’re just gonna show up to the party and take all the credit, just like you did with the wedding! This is supposed to be so exciting, but I wish it was all over. I know it’s never going to be, though, because it took approximately 37 years to plan that stupid wedding you had to have and you never helped! Noooo, you just argued with everything and gave your boy input about how the clothes were supposed to be comfortable. It was our wedding day! Do you really think I was comfortable in that dress?!? Now you’re gonna do the exact same thing and only chime in to complain that we can’t by that house, because it’s Red Brick Number Three and you can’t abide by any brick color that’s not between Red Brick Four and Red Brick Nine!”

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Jake: “Are you done?”
Me: “We’re never going to agree on a house. You want space outside and I want space inside and you’re going to get your way, because you’re pushy and you won’t like any of the houses I like, because nothing’s good enough for the Duchess of Cambridge, but I’m still going to have to do all the work.”
Jake: “You’re not going to have to do all of the work and I will love any house as long as you’re in it.”

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He doesn’t say the right thing often, but when he does…

With our newfound dedication to saving money, I was excited last week, to tell Jake that the library system had given us tickets to the NBA game. Considering the moratorium we’ve put on all but free fun, this was a great opportunity to have a zero dollar night out, especially since Jake’s never been to a game and I’ve only been to one, four years ago. So, we ate dinner at home and headed out with just enough time to make the lengthy walk to the arena, since we went for the free parking. After much hyperbole from me, about rugby teams eating each other’s remains in such cold, we finally made it the more than half mile to the front doors… where Jake was told he couldn’t take his pocketknife, a Christmas gift from his parents, inside. He could either surrender it to be thrown away or he could take it back to the car and come back… approximately an additional mile and a half of walking in the cold. So, as Jake began another trek, I mingled with some coworkers and found our seats, keeping my eye out for his return, planning to go get him a beer for his troubles.

Our team started… well, not strong, but not too weak, either. By the time Jake returned, however, the first quarter was over, we were behind, and it only went downhill from there. Jake was still in good spirits, despite his trip to Mount Doom and while he complained about our team’s performance, it wasn’t with genuine malice… and he was the only fan in the audience whom I can say that about.

Y’all, I don’t think I am ever going to another NBA game, because while our team might have sucked that night, they weren’t half as awful as their fans. A few rows in front of us, sat one man (who I’m pretty sure bought all the beer, judging by his behavior), screaming and booing every chance he got. When we fouled the other team and they took their free throws, he screamed “YOU SUCK!” as loud as he could.

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Me: “I wish I’d brought some M&M’s.”
Jake: “They’re just trying to distract him. They aren’t actually booing him.”
Crowd: ::booing::
Jake: “Okay, maybe they were that time.”
Me: “That’s horrible. If you ever acted that way at a game, I’d never go to any sporting event with you again.”
Jake: “Oh, they’re not that bad.”
Me: “You know what? The next time they boo the other team, because we fouled them, I’m going to shout affirmations and words of encouragement to balance it out.”
Jake: ::sighs:: “Please don’t.”
Crowd: ::booing::
Guy in Front of Us: “YOU SUCK!”
Me: “YOU’RE DOING A GREAT JOB! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! YOU HAVE VALUE AS A PERSON, TOO!”
Jake: “Thank you for that.”
Me: “When we have kids, you can teach them to win and I can teach them to do it nicely.”

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As our playing steadily worsened, so did the audience, booing and taunting the other team, not over bad calls or dirty plays, but because they were just tacky. Each time, I called out praises and emotional support, along the lines of…

“YOU’RE PLAYING VERY WELL!”
“YOU ARE GREAT AT SPORTS!”
“YOU HAVE WORTH AS A HUMAN BEING!”

… and the whole time, my small town, former Varsity football player husband, who was voted class clown and one of most popular guys in school, continued to sit contentedly, with his arm around me: his Potterhead, Trekkie, Kindle-toting, nerdy librarian of a wife, screaming affirmations at the opposing team during an NBA game. He’d roll his eyes or give a resigned sigh, but never once did he tell me to be quiet or suggest that I was embarrassing him, because that’s what marriage is, folks. That’s what they never told me, between cautionary tales and divorce statistics. When it’s right, at the end of the day, marriage is having someone on your side, no matter what…

… to grab your hand and drag you out of a movie theater, before you get your immature, reckless, M&M throwing butt kicked…

… to raise his brows and ask if you’re done with your latest met down, promise to help more, and swear that everything will be okay…

… to sit by your side, with humor and zero embarrassment, as you are 100% your most awkward and ridiculous self in a crowd of sports fans…

… and that was just in the past month. We don’t give marriage enough credit, y’all and as a former 23-year-old divorcee, I’m the first to admit it. At one time, undoubtedly within this blog, I joked that I wanted to get married on a snow covered mountain top… in Hell. When I was dating, I only had two settings: “I’m going to die alone!” and “… hopefully.” I had it wrong, though. Marriage isn’t always a Lifetime movie or a horrifying news story. It’s not just a lifetime of fights over who gives or takes more. When it’s right, it’s loving each other for our every impulsive, intense, and absurd aspect. It’s being each other’s best friends and favorite people. It’s a soft place to land. It’s seriously undersold, because no one ever told me that, when it’s right, marriage is awesome.

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