Incestuous Earwigs

I have a confession to make; I don’t think marriage should work. When you look at it objectively as two people from different backgrounds sharing space and dealing with stresses, sicknesses, friends, financial decisions, and possibly kids it seems like a recipe for slapping, sledgehammers, and angry packing. However, against all my predictions to the contrary, my marriage works and I think I know why…I truly like Blair.

I do not think Blair is perfect, nor do I think our marriage is, but I do think we have a successful relationship. Our success stems from the fact that we do truly like each other but we also put in the time and work required to continue liking each other. Last night we got into a “discussion” about our house and our future housing plans. The major difference between Blair and I is that he looks at the big picture…the very big picture…and could care less about details. He has a roof over his head that he can afford so he is happy. He would like to build a green home someday but isn’t stressing about when or where because he is perfectly happy if that doesn’t happen.

I, however, will get fixated on the little details and leave the big picture to him. I’ve made a list of the things I want when we build a house and I swear he almost had a stroke when he looked at it. My list includes: pull-out drawers under the sink, a permanent home for the mixer and cookbooks, and enough bookcases for all future book purchases. His plans are more concerned with finances, building materials, and land….boooring. But I think this works for us because we get the whole picture painted eventually, he just has to keep working in while I keep working out.

I see so many marriages that I just don’t understand. I do realize that I can’t know exactly what goes on in someone else’s home, but I can get a pretty good idea. I listen to both husbands and wives complain about their spouses, some of them incessantly, about everything from dirty socks to being downright mean. I hear husbands complain about nagging and laziness and wives complaining about inattentiveness and napping and I just don’t understand, did you not know these things before you got married?

Again, I do not think Blair is perfect but virtually every small complaint I have I knew about before we got married. Nothing is a deal-breaker or even all that irritating…..most of the time. The only real complaint I have is that he is a responsible, hard-working farmer which very often doesn’t leave him very much family time. That’s really not much of a complaint, especially as I watch him work on bucking the farm system and living his priorities.

But the best example I can give of why my marriage works is that Blair makes everything fun, from a drive to the store to a night on the town. Today we were unloading what felt like 1000, 1000lb cement blocks for a mythical strawberry patch he is going to build, on the most humid, disgusting day of the summer. Even better, the sun chose the moment we started unloading blocks to come out of hiding. I may have been jumping around a little squeamishly about all the slimy bugs crawling over me as I lifted each cement block and Blair responded with, “It’s a good thing we’re bringing new earwigs in because we wouldn’t want incestuous earwigs.”  Honestly, who doesn’t love a guy who comes up with that?