Today is my husband’s birthday.
he is old.
(er)
than me. ha! I heard a thing on the radio that said the average adult feels like they are 11 years younger than they actually are. That would make my husband 25.
so yeah. that’s about right.
The other day at church we had a lesson on marriage which inspired this conversation with my husband.
Me: On a scale of one to ten how would you rate our marriage (ten being good)
husband: an 8.
Me: 8. that’s pretty good. I’ll take it.
Me: what about when we lived in ST. George (about half way through our marriage)
Husband: a 3.
me: lol.
Me: what about that first year of marriage?
Husband: a zero.
me: really? a zero?
Husband: yeah. I remember thinking, “i didn’t sign on for this $%^#.”
and I laughed..only cause I can totally remember that first year of marriage. and laying in bed thinking. Man. this is hard.
cause guess what. Marriage is HARD.
It’s two completely different people..raised on different standards. trying to live one life together.
(related sidenote rant: here’s the problem I have with the bachelorette/bachelor tv series:
Yeah. like it’s hard to date someone when you A. have no “real problems” and are laying by a pool all day tanning waiting for your group date. and B. when you do go on said date…it’s somewhere fabulous flown in on a helicopter…with bono singing to you as you eat.
here’s what I want to see on the bachelorette: the lady handing every guy a string of Christmas lights tangled into a huge knot…and see who keeps their cool.
or the guys all babysitting like 35 kids. under the age of 5.
Or. a hidden camera as the guy has to drive to the date destination and he’s already 10 minutes late.
OR give them some money and a pile of bills and see how they manage it.
OR a video tour of their sleeping arrangements to see who is neat and who is a disgusting pig.
cause THAT is real life.
it just blows my mind when the act all shocked when it doesn’t work it.
(rant over)
me and husband are night and day- and I used to think that was a bad thing. How did I end up marrying a man that is so my opposite?
My husband is a go go go go go. I’m a homebody. that first year of marriage he wanted to go do this..go do that. and i wanted him to stay at home and play uno and watch law and order svu. and we fought about it.
(Now I realize–we don’t have to do everything together. If my husband stayed at home as much as I wanted him too…I would never get ANYTHING done. (seriously. this blog was started while he was commuting and gone for two weeks. I honestly bet that if he had a 9 to 5 in town I would have quit that first year of blogging!)
He’s always hot. I’m always freezing.
He loves watching sports center and every/any sport. I hate sports. all sports. sports on tv makes me want gouge my eyeballs out with a spoon. (but guess what? I can name a ton of Dallas cowboy players and Miami heat players and I know way too much about the nfl draft picks.)
He’s style is stuck in 2000. (doc martens and lucky jeans anyone?) I wear something “stylish” (ie skinny jeans) and he looks at me like I have two heads.
He is salty. I am sweet (I was speaking in “snack terms” but he goes to the gym alot..so he salty. and i AM sweet. so double meaning)
He loves video games. I’ve never played them.
He’s a pop drinker. I only drink water.
His sense of humor is jacka$$ (the tv show) my sense of humor is whose line is it anyway?
He buys the most expensive of …everything. (If I had a quarter every time I have heard “you get what you pay for”…I could pay to get whose line back on air.) I literally scan the prices looking for the cheapest price. then I use a coupon.
I read books. He reads nutritional facts on the back of crackers.
He hates disneyland. (this was not known to me until after we were married…or I probably wouldn’t have married him. BUT he had a letter K keychain with mickey mouse engraved on it…and I totally was like, he loves Disneyland. later found out some “hot” girl gave it to him and that’s why he had it on his keys. FALSE ADVERTISING!!!!!.
We are complete opposites.
Now I only tell you that because high school and college Kim would lay there dreaming about this husband that would go to art exhibits holding hands and then we would lay in bed reading books and discussing who was better…jacob or edward. And then saving up and taking everyone to disneyland and getting pictures with us all in matching mickey ears.
And If someone had told that Kim, ‘hey, you are going to marry someone that hates all that crap you just said.
‘” I would say, Nope. not getting married then.”
But guess what. Old wise kim is pretty danged happy. (I mean…it took 11 years to get to an eight status.)
I love that he is the ying to my yang. he’s silly when i’m serious. he’s stern when i’m too tired to care anymore.
I love that when I’m on day 3 of not leaving the house he will force me out to have some fun.
I love that we can be across a room from each other and someone else will say something insanely stupid and we can look at each other and know exactly what each other is thinking.
I love that when I clean up I will bend over in front of him and he will always grab my butt. cause that makes me feel good. even though there is getting more and more to grab.
I love that he will make out with me in public.
I love that when I drone on about DFP and SEO and mandy and hot glue he pretends like he is interested (kinda like when he tells me that dallas just signed Devin Street.)
I love that he will go like things on my facebook page so I don’t look like a loser.
I just think of how far we have come. and how glad that we “toughed it out” through the zeros…and the threes. cause it would have been easy to give up. Marriage is not like the VOW (best movie) or like princess bride (no man says as you wish) Or like pretty woman. (cause i’m not a hooker) it’s more like the notebook…
“which you are about 99% of the time”
so if you wanted a brief summary of this long post
it is this:
marriage is hard.
Disneyland rocks.
I love my husband.
Get a pre-nup.
happy birthday karllota.!.
Amy from Swag on, Momma! says
HA! Thank you. I love this post soooo much. Incidentally, I love it when you “randomly spout off on weird subjects.” Yes, I remember feeling like a hopeless failure when in our 2nd month of marriage, I was thinking, “OH MY GOSH. Is THIS newlywedded bliss?” Haha…yeah, life is SO much better now. We are opposites in lots of ways too! And, I realised many of the things I dreamed of in my “ideal” marriage, (loong conversations divulging our souls, going to dances, reading next to each other, him complimenting me every day, etc) would only happen if I married a girl. And, I am not a lesbian. SOOOO, I was being quite unrealistic. Ha! Anyway, life is better now. 🙂 We both had to chill a little, cause we both are very opinionated and thought we always had the right way to do everything. BUT, there are lots of right ways. 🙂 I am rambling. Just…I love this post. It is so nice to hear that others feel the same in their marriage. 🙂 And, I 100% agree about the bachelor….and about getting smacked on the butt (I guess that’s his version of complimenting me everyday!)
Penny says
I have to say I think you just described our first 11 years of marriage! We’ve been married 34 years now, and let me just say that it just keeps getting better all the time. We have both mellowed with age and have found more things in common over the years which both make things MUCH easier to deal with. And, YES, I love him more now than I ever thought possible the day we got married, and I thought I loved him with all my heart then. Maybe I did and my heart just made more room for more love. Oh, and the butt grab thing. Yeah, still happens even after 34 years. I wish you two all the happiness in the world, and I hope your hubby has a wonderful birthday too, just for making you a happy wife.
P.S. I love your random rants too.
Karl says
You just got bumped up to a 9. I love you Kimberly your the best.
Jules B. says
Amen. I loved this post. You and your other half, remind me of my better half and I. ♡
keri @ shaken together says
My hubby and I are complete opposites (I’m the goody two shoes, he was the guy my mom warned me against, I am a wimp with spicy things and he loves ALL THINGS HOT enough to burn your eyebrows off) and we’ve been married 14 years and counting 🙂 Loved this post!!
Susan the farm quilter says
AMEN!!! Love your side rants 🙂 Great topic that I’m sending on to my daughter who is getting married in August (Disneyland is their planned honeymoon, sorry!).
Connie says
Funny Disneyland story…we went on our honey moon to Disneyland and we were standing in line to get clam chowder. The best kind in the bread bowl from the little stand by pirates of the Caribbean. Anyway, a mom and daughter were in line behind us and the girl says mom, I love Disneyland! I want to come here on my honeymoon. The mom responds, oh no honey, you want to go somewhere good for your honey moon. And my new husband and I just looked at each other and tried not to bust up.
On a serious note, everyone keeps saying marriage gets better over the years, and it does but sometimes your marriage gets hit over the head with a two by four and the economy sucks and you find yourself married with a hubby that lives in another state. Marriage suffers when you don’t spend any significant time together in years. It really sucks! So things don’t always go from hard to better. I think it is about realizing hard times will come but you can and will get through them. I keep saying this too shall pass and I can’t wait until we have the time together to get our marriage back to that great place. Because I love you isn’t the same over a text or static filled phone call. Anyway long story short our mantra is we are in this forever no matter what so we have to make it happy cuz no one wants to be miserable forever (romantic no? )
Kimbo says
ha! that is the funniest story! disneyland would be the best honeymoon ever!!!!
my husband commuted for two years. hardest two years. but after it was all said and done…we can look back and see how much we grew! we appreciate each other more now and always remember what its like without each other!
Jackie says
Great post Kim! I would like to think that my husband and I are close to being the same than opposite, but maybe not so much. He doesn’t like sports, I like football, the NFL, not the college stuff because those kids should be studying and getting a degree and get way too much attention for playing a sport that will not make most of them famous and rich. But I love football season and am eagerly awaiting its fall return, the hubs, not so much. He doesn’t want the kids to be involved in sports either, even though he admits that our son actually does a pretty good job at little league baseball. But kids have a lot of energy and it needs a channel, and I refuse to let that channel be us. We’re tired. He’s not crafty, or really interested in my sewing hobby, but does occasionally comment on something. I take an interest in his likes more than he does mine. I would like to vary our outings/vacations, he doesn’t want to cross the mississippi or the mason-dixon line. :/ And also, I learned the other day that he hated field day in school. WHAT? Who hates field day? Yeah, he did. Then I realized why. It involved athletic ability, not much, but enough for him to hate it, and it wasn’t academic related. Nerd. 🙂 We’ve been married over 8 years, but have known each other since high school, and he still grabs me at almost every chance he gets. And marriage is hard. When the preacher reads that section in weddings that says something like, “marriage is not an institution to be entered into lightly..” they mean that. You don’t realize what that actually means until you have been married a few years and wonder why people would ever want to get married in the first place. But we are in this together, forever. Wow, this is a long comment. Sorry. Loved your post.
Kaci Jo says
Before I met my hubs I said I wanted to marry someone with a college degree, older than me, and made more money than me. Some how my husbands meets NONE of these requirements. He likes to joke I’m his sugar momma. We too are complete opposites. I mean we couldn’t be more opposite. And that’s okay, because it somehow works. I wouldn’t trade him for the world.
Kim says
A.Men. Sister! Marriage is work, hard work sometimes but wow is it worth it when its good!! I saddens me to see those not willing to put the effort out there for theirs. Fantastic post!!!