Marriage Musings

Since I am obviously an expert on marriage by now, I thought I’d offer up some thoughts. 

I have a friend who I can send on an hour-long rant by simply uttering two little words: love languages.  She will groan and roll her eyes and talk about how this phenomenon has forever stained relationships.  However, there are also those who will swear by this book.  They say things like:

“I never really knew who I was until I read this book!”
or
“This made my marriage last 3 years longer than it would have otherwise!”
or
“Now that I know my wife’s love language, we never fight!  In fact, we never even talk because we just get each other!”

Well I too wanted to never have to talk to my life partner, so I looked into it.  On their website, they have a convenient quiz that will, of course, change your life forever by telling you which your love language is: words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, or receiving gifts.

So I took the quiz.  It told me my love language is quality time.  Well, I do enjoy spending time with my beloved, so I shrugged and sent the quiz to him.  After thinking about it, I realized that yes, I am often begging my housemate to spend more time with me.  YES! I thought. All my marriage woes are solved before they have even begun!

I encouraged him to take the quiz so I would know how to make him eternally happy as well.  He took it and his love language is…drumroll please… quality time.  Hmmm…

Well why do we need to talk then?  Shouldn’t we be so in sync that we spend all of our time together and never need anything or anyone else?  Needless to say, this is not the case, so it got me thinking.  And for me personally, here is what I think my true love language is: all of the above. Hold on to your hats there, friends!

Sometimes, I absolutely love when my mr. strokes my hair.  Other times, it’s super annoying and I swat his hand away.  Sometimes, when he makes dinner for me, my heart melts.  Other times, I want to tell him he was supposed to cook the potatoes before putting them in the soup (okay, I have said this). 

One day, a cheesy note will bring tears to my eyes.  The next day, I will roll them upon reading.  A well-thought-out gift can make my whole week better, or it could… you know, not.  Maybe I’m one of those crazy confused women the movies portray, or maybe I just like a lot of variety in my life.

Either way, love languages are definitely no magic solution.  In my mind (and in my marriage), love just naturally produces all of these things, and I enjoy them as they come.  Yes, sometimes I need one more than the other, but at the end of the day, I really need them all.

High maintenance, I know.

What do you think?  Do love languages make you vomit or swoon?  

True Love

Reason # 879,431 that I love my significant other:

We have a cat (don’t judge).  This cat is sometimes more angelic than you would believe, and no matter how much you may dislike cats, you would fall in love. 

Other times, she gets locked in the bathroom and we pretend we don’t know her.  Last night, she chewed through the wire of one of our speakers.  That was one of those times.

So today, I have a wonderful day off work.  I plan on sleeping in and lounging all day.  The man of the house still has to work.  After getting ready, he picked up the cat (not in the angelic mode today) and quietly shut the door to keep her out of the bedroom (and from eating my hair while I sleep).

This sounds so simple, but I guarantee I fell asleep smiling. 

Boys, it sounds stupid, but please do these things for girls.  It was so darn thoughtful and I’ve been sending happy loving vibes his way all day because of it.

Just wanted to share my fantastic morning. :)

Lovely in Our Differences

Picture this, Northwesterners: You climb a tall tree and can see for miles (many, many miles) in Every. Single. Direction.

Picture this, Midwesterners: You drive in any direction for 15 minutes and experience an elevation change of at least 1,000 feet.

Crazy, isn’t it?  I have found that people who have lived here in the northwest their whole lives have this odd mixture of disdain and fascination with the Midwest.  They ask me questions like, “Have you ever slaughtered a cow with your bare hands?” or “Did a blizzard ever wipe out your entire family?”  

In case those very same questions were burning in the back of your mind, the answer to both of these is no.  However, in my short time of living here, I have found a lot of differences between these two regions.

*Before you read, yes I am purposely making broad generalizations.  It’s so much more entertaining that way!*

1. Food 

In the Midwest, you eat meat.  Real men eat meat and potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Grandmas bake apple pies, you eat fried foods at the county fair, and if you’re in a big city, you go out for chic drinks with friends (if you’re in a small town, you share those drinks in the back of a pickup.

In the Northwest, you eat vegetables.  Preferably organic vegetables that you grew in your backyard.  If you eat meat, it must be free range, organic, fed at a banquet table with all its friends, and in very small portions. Grandmas bake tofu cookies and you go out for coffee with friends (or beer if you’re a man.  Always a local brew, of course). We went to the Portland Saturday Market and saw a booth selling cotton candy made with organic free-trade sugar and all-natural fruit juice dyes. These people are serious.

2. Weather

In the Midwest, you’ll wake up on a beautiful October day and it will be 75 degrees outside.  You will fall to sleep with a blissful love of fall, and wake up early to scrape the frost off your car.  You go to the beach and the park and shopping in the summer, and you go to work and back home in the winter (if you can get your car to start and the roads aren't covered in ice and snow).

In the Northwest, you’ll wake up on an October day to lower 60’s with a light drizzle on and off throughout the day.  You will fall asleep to the pitter patter of raindrops and wake up to upper 50’s with clouds in the morning and a light drizzle in the afternoon.  That’s about it.  It’s predictable and consistent, 2 foreign words to Midwesterners.  In the summer you go to the ocean and hiking and running on the Nike trail.  In the winter, you go hiking and skiing and running on the Nike trail.

3. Mailboxes

In the Midwest, people have mailboxes.  In front of their houses.

I don’t know if this is a city-wide or region-wide thing, but where I live, there are community mailboxes where you get a little locked slot.  No house has a mailbox.  Can anyone explain this to me???

I joke, but I love all of these things.  I love hiking, I love sunshine, I love apple pies (only my grandma’s, of course) and all-natural cotton candy.  I have had so much fun getting to know my new home, and the Midwest will always have a special place in my heart.  There are many other differences, but these have by far been the most noticeable.  What categorizes your area?