Long Relationships

Call me a Valentine’s Day Scrooge. Seeing card aisles light up with red and pink makes makes me groan. There are high expectations to be romantic and extravagant. Friends who are single might be particularly grumpy around others who are not. Is it all because of outside pressure? Exactly how important is Valentine’s Day?

At the risk of all things being relative, I would suggest that Valentine’s Day is as important as a person perceives it to be. As such, I imagine that everyone has unique traditions that correspond to that level of importance. For the 14 couples who are married on Valentine’s Day at the Empire State Building every year, I hope the day is marked with romance and renewal. For others, the day may simply bring back memories of past sweethearts, a first valentine, or a particular romantic dinner. Couples might enjoy Valentine’s Day as a free pass to do something special, like go out dancing, or take a weekend away. A crew of girlfriends may spend the evening together for a fun night out.

I feel like advertising helps to promote a mentality that the affection exhibited in a specific 24-hour period is valued more highly than during the rest of the year. Personally, I regard Valentine’s Day as arbitrary, at best, mainly because the date doesn’t correspond with anything significant to JG or me. (more…)

I switched on the premier of Rules of Engagement last night while I waited for a batch of cookies to cool. I’m not sure what others thought, and I am not a television critic, but I was not a fan.

To be frank, I thought the show was terrible. David Spade plays a swinging, insensitive single; Oliver Hudson is a bumbling, brand new fiancé; and Patrick Warburton is a resigned husband. Together, they teach a strong moral: being committed stinks.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. I concede that there were a few moments worth my chuckle. For example, the married couple had a little spat about the “60ish�? dollars the wife had spent. The husband responded by closing the checkbook and declaring it “balanced … ish�?. In another scene, the fiancé wondered why his bride-to-be had registered for a cake plate when she had no intention of baking. “I don’t want to be trapped in a cakeless marriage!�? he cried. Heh. Moments like these – funny, but true – were far outnumbered by sarcastic, flat comments and tired characters.
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JG sat up in bed. “I can’t sleep any longer. I’m going to get up and get something done.�?

I groaned and looked at the clock. 7am. On a Saturday.

“You can sleep as long as you want,�? he quickly clarified. Deal. I pulled the covers up to my chin and rolled over. In my book, weekends need to be distinctly different from the weekday and that includes extended sleeping time.

When I opened my eyes again, JG was bounding into our bedroom. “I got my paper written for my grad class and I started laundry. I just need to fix my tire now.�?

Still groggy, I looked question marks at him. Um, congratulations?

“Or maybe,�? he continued, “I could do our taxes!�? With that, he kissed me quickly and left the bedroom.

I rubbed my eyes, debating whether or not to join the living. I weighed the pro of staying in my nice, warm bed versus the con of having to yell my social security number to a different floor of the house. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and felt around for my slippers. It was about time to be a functioning human being, anyhow.

JG was sitting at the kitchen table, which was covered with paperwork. He brightened up when he saw me and said cheerfully, “Look who’s up! Oh, can I have your social?�?

I thought I knew JG well when I married him. I knew he was a morning person who likes to check things off his list. But getting up early to do laundry and taxes?

It’s enough to make a girl fall in love all over again.

marriage, morning person, taxes

It seems that football can be a divisive subject for some couples, especially if one person is much more invested than the other. Week after week, game after consecutive game, the football season has the potential to end up as a string of events when there isn’t much interaction or understanding. Sites like The Female Fan attempt to bridge this gap by bringing aspects of education and entertainment to the sport for wives or girlfriends of diehard pro football fans. If you’re one of these uninterested other halves, it can be hard to look forward to the Super Bowl, revered by advertisers as a festival of machismo. When apathetic women have the prospect of an entire evening devoted to tackles, buxom cheerleaders, and beer commercials, it’s no wonder that the concept of the Super Bowl Spa has been so successful.

Well, I can’t afford to trek to Brooklyn to pay for a Big Game facial and, while I usually enjoy college football, the only interest I have in this year’s Super Bowl is in the form of Peyton Manning (I do love his commercials). So, what to do?
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Real Simple is one of the magazines in our mailbox that has my name on it. I like its bulk; I can enjoy an issue in slow bites, savoring the content. There’s always something that makes me think or something else I want to dog-ear for the future and the February 2007 issue was no exception. In an article entitled, “Together for Life�?, writer Liz Welch tells the stories of five couples who have been married for one, five, ten, twenty, and fifty years.

Because I’m at the 1.5-year mark, I zoned right in on the one-year couple, Sydne and Lewis, but I was a little bit disappointed because they’re almost twenty years older than I am. It’s not a bad thing, but it does lessen the degree to which I can relate. I quickly flipped through the rest of the article, noting the milestone and the ages of the couples. As the years of marriage increased, the age of the couple at the time of their wedding decreased, not much to my surprise. I’ve heard that the average age for first marriages is increasing, especially for women; I had experienced enough looks of surprise around the time of my own wedding.

Despite the age difference, when Sydne and Lewis talked about learning to trust the other person as a significant challenge in their first year, the words really resonated with me. In their case, they had been individuals for their entire adult lives prior to their marriage; in our first year, we were buying a house, combining incomes, and setting up a 401(k) – there’s a lot of trust involved in those decisions. I felt a little wave of affirmation when the couple admitted, “We’re still waiting for the tough part [of marriage].�?
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