I've been married now for a little less than a month, and I figure that makes me an expert on marriage and relationships now. My husband and I met at a bar, and most anything you read will tell you that is no place to meet your soul-mate, but in our defense, we weren't patrons, we were employees. It was two months before my twenty-second birthday and I was working the beer tub and selling jell-o shots off a tray, and he was bar-backing and bar-tending.That was almost four years, two residences, a dog, and two kids ago. We have been through good times and bad, and I don't mean bad times like small arguments that led to him sleeping on the couch, ( aweeeee shucks!). I mean Earth shattering, knock down, drag out fights. One time for example, we were fighting so bad we were calling each other every name in the book and Tony was standing at the front door with various knick-knacks from around the house I took pride in and was throwing them onto the front lawn. If you think the walk of shame is the morning after a one-night-stand, you're wrong. The walk of shame is gathering your dew-covered belongings up the morning after the biggest white trash fight the neighborhood has ever seen while the cul-de-sac drinks coffee and watches, while pretending to get the newspaper. We have chased each other around the house threatening impending death and one time I took a lamp and used it to smash a hole into the wall. The idea of marriage is actually quite absurd. Two people from opposite sides of the tracks move into and share a living space and everyone wipes their hands free of them and they're on their own to figure it out. You don't remember the early years of your parents relationship, because you were very young or weren't born. You wonder why you and your husband don't emulate your own parent's perfect relationship, and that's because they had white trash nights to get them to where they are now too.
I think we are all given a "honey-moon" stage to use as a reminder. When you want to give up, and move on, you can remind yourself of the early years when everything your partner did was charming, and cute. I remember thinking when I first met my husband how cool it was he used a rubber-band around his money and cards instead of a wallet. Now, of course, we argue about it, because when I steal money he can tell. I don't wrap it back up the same way he does. Another time I cleaned his entire apartment and he told me that action told him I was wife-material. Little did he know I simply have Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (self-diagnosed, I'm a hypochondriac. Also self-diagnosed). Those memories though, get us through the speed bumps, or in our case in the highway of life, we have entire bridges that are under construction and Tony and I try to ramp them anyways, regardless of the caution signs.
Having children outside of marriage is deeply frowned upon because of obvious religious and moral reasons. I think a huge part of being told to avoid it, is because no blushing bride wants to get ready for her wedding with a toddler and a newborn in tow. Getting married after children is similar to a Barnum and Bailey act. I wanted the day we received our marriage license to be a happy memory, one I would never forget. Half of my wish came true, I won't ever forget the Probate office that housed humans with more tattoos than teeth, the blow-out Tony and I got into at the car wash that day, and both kids hollering like banshees in the backseat. To be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way. Our fights, our crazy kids, the good times and the bad, have molded us into who we are today, and while we took things slow and did things backwards, we are stronger now than we would've been without. We might still argue, but we are inexplicably on each other's team. We might think our kids are out of control, but we love them until our hearts explode, and we might be new to this marriage thing, but we certainly aren't new to sticking it out and staying together 'til death and all that...
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