Three and a half

One week ago, something I feel is kind of special happened. We hit our 3 and a half year anniversary on July 22nd, and it's pretty exciting.

For starters, most of my married friends (as in, the ones who are our age) are already divorcing. It's scary, and it definitely serves as a reminder about how fragile relationships can be when there's too many strikes against them, but it also encourages me too. We're beating the odds. Every day that we make it, and stick together, we're putting more and more distance between ourselves and the statistics. And every day that we make it we learn a little more about how to make tomorrow a little easier.

The biggest stress factor in our lives right now is money. It's no surprise--these days, that's everyone's biggest problem. Unfortunately, that stress factor isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so we're trying to learn to live with it. No amount of money can fix a bad relationship, and if a relationship is truly sound then money shouldn't be able to hurt it, either. And I could be wrong, and I could come on here a month from now and say we're filing for divorce, but I think we have a pretty good relationship.

We come from two different childhoods and I think that is part of what helps us work things out. I came from a family where my parents didn't fight. They hardly even raise their voices at each other, and we NEVER heard them arguing. They disagree, and we saw that often, but my parents just don't fight. So to me, married people shouldn't just bicker and argue and fuss at each other, and they most certainly shouldn't carry on at each other in front of their kids. So much of my childhood was unstable, but the one thing I knew I could count on was the relationship between my parents. I want my daughter to have the same stability. Nice Guy, on the other hand, came from a childhood where every day was an adventure in marital discord. His early years were peaceful, but with every child his parents added to the family, the worse they fought. Money got tighter and tighter, and tension got worse and worse. To him, fighting is no big deal, but the instability messed him up in a lot of ways. He can see just how badly it hurt him to watch his mom and dad act that way for so long, and he wants to do better by our family. So even though we argue, and even though we don't always get along, we both know how important it is to resolve problems in a more mature and reasonable way than fighting. Sometimes a good argument is necessary for getting feelings out in the open, but it should never just be left sitting there, unresolved, and we try our best to never go to bed angry.

We have about another three and a half years to go before we hit the next major milestone for divorce rate reduction. I think we'll make it. :)

The weird thing is that we've been married for three and a half years (three years, six months, and one week, to be exact) and we've spent nearly two of it with our daughter. When we celebrate our 25th anniversary, I'll be 44 years old, and my daughter will be 23. It makes me feel so young and old all at the same time, to think about time that way.

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts for today. Hope everyone's doing alright!