Let's fight

Marriage is all about compromise. You start to figure out after a while that some people are always going to take naps, and some people are always going to leave the vacuum cord laying around. Really, you are never going to celebrate these things, unless maybe one of you almost dies and from then on every time you see the vacuum cord you will be seized with thankfulness and clutch the cable to your heaving bosom. So, exceptions. But for the most part, you will kinda roll your eyes and deal with one's idiosyncrasies the way you choose to deal. 

Then there are the Big Two. These are the fights every married couple has, at least after a while, and one is money and the other one is not something I talk about on a family blog. These fights come and go, in cycles and progressively get better or worse. 

Then there are the little nitpicky things that still irritate you after almost 13 years, like the way that one chews a ham and cheese sandwich, or how some people never notice the floor needs to be swept until the linoleum is hidden. 

Or, the temperature in the car on roadtrips. I like to be warm. I especially like to be warm when it is snowing outside. Richy likes to run the air conditioner in the van year round. He claims he is unable to breathe otherwise. I, respectfully, think this is a load of hooey.  So we battle back and forth, one turning the knob towards the blue, the other towards the red. I put on a sweater, sighing heavily. He gasps and cracks open his window. I put my hood on, rubbing my arms to try to maintain circulation. He makes strangled sounds. Can we do this for 12 hours on a trip? We can do this for 12 years. It is probably never going to change. 

I write this from the corner of the good couch, which I won by being the most stubborn, or at least the loudest. He is napping on the old futon. 

As I get perfected in love, I'm sure I will get a lot, lot better at compromise. In the meantime, I can't think of anyone in the world I'd rather fight with.