September 10, 2021 – The Thirty-First Official Friday Night BeerBlog

How is that for a blog title? A little shock-n-awe on a Friday Night. Let me set the record straight. Everyone’s marriage can really suck sometimes. There is nothing wrong with saying it out loud. Just like there is nothing wrong with saying that being a mom or dad can really suck sometimes. Or being a boss or an employee can really suck sometimes (okay, all the time). It just is what it is. If it didn’t suck sometimes you wouldn’t appreciate it nearly as much when it doesn’t.

Mike and I celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary this week. Twenty-Five. There is just something about that number. I’ve been in this close, sometimes too close relationship, with someone else for 25 years. We suddenly have fallen into the “old couple” category. Couple who have been married this long start down a different path once they hit this milestone. They exit the “married” column and move into the “married for a freaking long time” column. This path leads to dying while married to each other.

Think about it. How many couples do you know married over twenty-five years get divorced? They get to 24 and figure they’d better decide if this is it. Or are they are in it for the long haul? My parents divorced at 24 years. Just under the wire of FOREVER. And now they have both been remarried 25+ years, becoming old married couples with different people.

Recently, I’ve had several younger people ask how Mike and I have made it this long. And that is a good question. I don’t think it has ever been a conscious decision to make it this long. It’s always been just a conscious decision to make it to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes the next day, then the next, and suddenly you’ve been together twenty-five years.

It’s more than that though. We’ve been lucky as a couple to have a lot of great couples as role models. Close friends who have been married even longer than us, giving us hope that it can be done. But I think the most important part of our relationship, however dysfunctional at times, is that we are best friends. Truly, best friends. More than that, we are family. And family is very important to both of us.

There is no one I want to spend time with more than Mike. There is no one I want to get in my daily 10,000 words with or taunt to get more attention from more than Mike. The Pickle can be a real pain in the ass when he thinks he is right all the time, but he’s got my back no matter what and I know to my core that is the truth.

Did I mention those children of ours? There is no one I would have wanted to screw up kids more with than Mike. Of course I’m kidding, but there is something about entering new life territory with someone who is just as new to it as you and who feels just as strongly about it as you. We learned how to keep our children alive – together. So far, so good.

So I guess the answer to these youngsters about how we have lasted this long is this: Bottom line is that Mike and I are in it ALL together. We are a team. Success and failure are shared. We both benefit if we succeed and we’ll both suffer if we fail, so we just have to make the conscious decision every day to be in it together and that today we are going to win. Again, so far, so good.

Cheers to all of you! And cheers to my old man. Old being the key word.

LLM

Link to the FNBB podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1822142/9175322