Our Anniversary.....

Fifteen years ago, Hubby and I made the trek to Chattanooga, Tennessee to get married. I wrote about it here almost three years ago.

I don't think I wrote about the fact that I was scared to death. Having been through not one but TWO bad marriages, I was beginning to think the common denominator was ME. Well obviously the common denominator was ME, but I didn't want to think I was the problem. At least not all of it.

The first marriage was simply a matter of a youthful bad choice. He was (and still is) a good guy, but it was sort of like being married to a puppy.

I wish I could blame the second marriage on youth. It was just a bad choice, pure and simple. I may have mentioned it before, but when Sweet Girl and I left that house, it was because we came home to find the front door shot up. As in with a shotgun. As in you couldn't close the front door anymore. He was passed out on the couch, so we gathered as many of our things as we could and never looked back. But that's not what this is about.

Without getting too mushy or going into too much detail, I'll just say that the past 15 years have been worth all the frustration and sometimes sheer terror of the other two relationships. In some ways the past 15 years have gone by in a blur that seems like an instant, and in other ways it seems like Hubby and I have been together forever.

We rarely argue, almost NEVER exchange heated words (except in the rare case of a bedroom suit that winds up costing $10,000 in home renovations just to fit it in our bedroom), and always have fun together. We share a love of sports, although I am more passionate than he is. As I write this blog post, Hubby has turned in for the evening and I am yawning as I watch the closing innings of a Braves baseball game. We travel well together and have never had what we could call a "bad" trip, not even the time we spent the night in the Miami airport just trying to get home. We don't necessarily like the same kind of music (on satellite radio, he keeps it on "50's on 5" and I sneak it over to "70's on 7" when he isn't looking), but he has been to at least two Billy Joel concerts with me. I've gone with him on golf/gambling trips when I didn't want to go, and I didn't even bitch about it.

Once several years ago, when Hubby was still working, he wanted to go out of town for a golf tournament, but he was scheduled to work on Sunday. He couldn't find anyone to work for him, so I did it. I put on his Pepsi uniform and worked the grocery stores he was responsible for that day. I had been with him a gazillion times, so I knew what to do (mostly), and even if the store manager HAD been around and noticed I wasn't the usual Pepsi employee, he wouldn't have cared as long as his store was worked properly (and it was). I'm sure in a pinch Hubby would have likewise filled in for me at school, though I shudder to consider what the results might have been.

We have a lot in common, but we also have our separate interests. My blog pal DJan wrote about this very topic several weeks ago, and I need to revisit her post to help sort out my own thoughts on the issue. I recall thinking, "Yeah, it's just like that!" when I read her post, so I think it was something along the lines of having similar interests but not feeling compelled to share every waking moment together. Hubby goes off to golf, and I ride my bike. He wants me to take up golf, and I might, but it still won't be a case of us ALWAYS going to the golf course together. Heaven forbid. He isn't interested in riding a bicycle, mainly because he doesn't want to wear "those silly shorts." Even when we go on vacation, I take my bike and go off for an hour or two by myself, and he reads or watches television while I'm gone.

To celebrate our anniversary today, we worked like DOGS. Hubby mowed the lawn and cleaned off our back porch while I scrubbed the tile floor in the hall bathroom with a TOOTHBRUSH. (It was in pretty bad shape.) We did clean up enough to go out for an early dinner (I even wore a dress - I know, right?), and I picked up some new sports bras for BRAG next week.

It's been an awesome 15 years.