On Getting Married

I was just talking to a girlfriend of mine the other day, who is heavily into the dating and seeking a mate phase in her life, and I found myself telling her why I got married, so today I'm going to tell it to you.

Marriage is a very good thing to do, and it is something that I highly recommend. My husband, Brian, and I just passed our 12th anniversary, so I hope I've gained some clout on this subject. I see lots of people living together these days, some sharing a life, but, I guess, not quite sure if they want to commit. Others, living together permanently; that's their arrangement for life. I know some people are more comfortable with this, and I will try to enlarge my understanding to attempt to comprehend this. Prior to our marriage, my husband and I were the types of people who wanted to be married. Married, I should say, is different than living together, soul mated, or bonded for life.

On the last episode of "Mad About You', Paul Reiser's show on TV in the early 90's, Paul's father was complementing him on seven years of marriage. However, he and his wife had just learned that the person who married them wasn't really qualified to marry them, so, accidentally, they really hadn't been married all that time. (I know, it's a silly plot twist.) At that point, the couple freaked out and immediatly weren't sure how much of a couple they were. Paul's father said: "Wow, seven years, that's not nothing!" In response, Paul asked "now what if we hadn't been married that whole time?" And his father said "well, that would be nothing."

I know it's only a pretend TV show, but it illustrates my point. I've seen many non-married couples stay together for years, longer than some marriges even: living together, "consummating" their relationship, sharing cars, friends, and finances. But what I always want to know is: are they a family? Do they spend all of their days, or even some of their days, concentrating on concern that the relationship might not last? What happens if children come unexpectedly? are they welcomed automatically or is it a stressful time? Will children complicate things because you have to decide what last name to give them and who gets custody? If jobs change, or if you have to move far away, does the couple stay together in the move, or is that something to split over? Is it hard to share family duties because each party has a sense of self instead of a sense of working for the marriage? Is it true that the man sometimes thinks: why should I buy the cow if I can get the milk for free? For this last question, I think it is true because I've seen it more than once in my friends. And when the flow of milk stops, the man leaves. The woman is left looking for a mate again, but now with more of her life and childbearing years gone.

I didn't mean to offend anyone there with those questions, they weren't directed at anyone in particular, they are just things I wonder when I see perma-dating friends of mine. It motivated me to tell you what I know. If you are not sure if you are with the right person, wait and be sure. Please don't be with the wrong person just to be married, that's not what I'm advocating. I am rather speaking to those people who are already in a relationship with the right person. And for those of you who aren't sure which group you are in, please note, identifying a person as the right or wrong person to marry shouldn't take longer than a year.

When did I know? Here's what I wanted to tell you. Brian and I were in love, and twitterpated, which, yes, dulls the logic and reasoning. However, we had another clue. After several months of dating, but less than half a year, we finally reached a point where we couldn't stand to be apart from each other. Not only was it quite painful to have to return to different houses at night -- we are the kind that didn't live together or consummate our relationship prior to marriage -- but we knew we wanted to be with the other person every day for the forseeable future. That's enough, that's all it takes: Love, Friendship, Wanting to be togehter every day, and being over age 18.

Some might say it takes money, and I've found that to be both true and untrue. It is true in that you need to be able to provide for the basics in life, such as housing, food, and clothing. When Brian and I announced our engagement to his father, he immediately sat us down at his table and had us show him our financial plan. And he was right. It may not take loads of money, but it does take the ability to be able to budget, plan, and spend money wisely. I have heard that financial problems are the 2nd leading cause of divorce, so plan out your finances carefully. However, I believe it is not true that large amounts of money need to be saved first. They are not needed, you do not need to buy a large house or have a huge and lavish wedding at the beginning of a marriage. These are things that can be worked for together as you share your life and as you grow in love and in financial power. Some people have tiny weddings, you can always have a large party a few years later, or every anniversary, to celebrate your union. We had a tiny wedding, spent about $130 total, which included my dress, a small grocery store cake, and a few roses. They don't all have to be this small, we were very poor in college, but it's an illustration to point out that marriage and a wedding don't always have a lot to do with each other.

How'd it turn out? Great! We have a great marriage. We are still best friends and still in love. We have two kids so far, and we want more someday. We don't agree on everything, or even a lot of things. But we didn't get married to be with our identical twin. We find we are attracted to the differences in each other. We find that it's okay to disagree and do things our own ways. We are living together, and sharing our lives, but we do not do everything together, nor do we want to. We have some interests that are the same, and some that are different. I love my life, my husband, my family, and my marriage, and I wouldn't change it for the world!

To sum up: If you know who you would marry if you had to choose, then you're probably ready to get married.

Happy Birthday to Me

Hi there. Yes, it's my birthday today. That'll be fun, I'm looking forward to it. I wanted to update you on what we've been doing this month.

For Christmas, we stayed home, barely did gifts as usual, then a few days after the holiday, we went to a bed and breakfast out in the country and stayed for 2 days. It was very nice, a perfect reset for the new year. We went here: http://www.rose-hill.com/, if you’d like to see pictures.

Also, we just bought a car. It’s been a busy two weeks with all the car buying research and work. I had a Dodge Caravan, and Brian had a Nissan Pickup, a tiny truck. The whole family can’t fit in his truck, which only seats 2 people, so that causes some troubles sometimes. So, we’ve been planning for months now that he needs a bigger car, but we kept putting it off. Then, two weeks ago on Friday night he was driving home from work and someone yelled at him at a stopsign, “can I buy your car?” And no, he didn’t have any kind of “for sale” sign on his car! He just really wanted a small truck and said they are in high demand right now, and he was having trouble finding one. So they pulled over and talked, later that night, we sold him the car and he paid in cash. We were just as shocked as anyone. We'd been meaning to sell the car, but we kept putting it off.

This guy paid just over blue book, which was great. Then we looked a cars for Brian online for a week. Mostly Honda Accords. Brian decided he likes Hondas this time. After a few days of that, I pointed out that after this car for him, that the next car would have to be for me. The Dodge van that I have to drive with the kids is way too big for me, I’m too short for it, and can’t reach things, and the steering wheel hits my legs if I move it low enough for my arms, and I just don’t like it, plus it’s already up to 90,000 miles. I told him after this car, that maybe the next car could be the Honda Odyssey that I want. He said you want a Honda van? Ya. So we looked them up on the used car section of kbb.com that we were using to look at Accords, and it turned out that if you get an Odyssey that is a few years old, they’re the same price as the car we were looking at. Then it was just a matter of fitting two vans in our garage. So we measured it and tested the garage with our Dodge, and they both would fit, so it was done. We would get an Odyssey, then I could get the new car, which is much better for a woman and kids, and he could get the Dodge, which he’s always liked, and which is a safer car, and a car that can travel to San Antonio when we need to. His truck wasn’t trustworthy enough to do that.

All of this internet research we did was in the middle of an ice storm here, in which the whole city shut down for three days because there was ice on every road, and it wasn’t safe to drive. It's usually above freezing here so no one has chains or other preparations to drive in ice. Companies and school districts for hundreds of miles all shut down for three days. Brian was supposed to fly to California for work. That got delayed by a day and some hours, but he finally flew out once the airport received enough de-icing solution. While he was gone, I went to look at the car I’d picked online with the fewest miles and the lowest price. I loved it. The guy wanted to sell it to me, of course. He said “what do I need to do to make this happen”, I told him we had to wait two days until Brian was back in town. Long story short, we bought it on Saturday. Here’s what it looks like:
http://cars.com/go/search/detail.jsp;jsessionid=EDYMDKZG30XOTLAYIEXE2UY?tab=photos&paId=219298718&recnum=&actLog=true&tracktype=usedcc&pageNumber=&numResultsPerPage=&largeNumResultsPerPage=0&sortorder=descending&sortfield=PRICE&certifiedOnly=false&criteria=&aff=national

That’s not the actual car, or the dealer or the year, or anything. It's just the manufacturer's pictures, but it looks like that. Anyway, we’re quite spoiled now, it’s got automatic doors, and a DVD player, and leather seats. I don’t know how we got the price we did

A Time to Share, and a Time to Refrain from Sharing

I know I'm very behind on my blogs. Sorry about that. I guess things got busy. I'll fill you in soon. In the mean time, I'd like to tell you that two days ago was the 2 year anniversary of when I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. For those of you still figuring out what that means, I found a great list of descriptions from the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

This list is all very true and real in my life. Especially times like this past week, in which a lot of social interaction was required, and my acting ability (my learned skills of acting and talking like a normal person in order to be understood by others) just went the way of the dodo. This is explained by number 17 below.

Fortunately, most of yesterday's chores and errands involved only breif conversations, so I've been able to restore my ability to act and interpret, and should be a lot more social again by tomorrow. This makes me happy. I like to be social. I feel trapped and sad when I know I can't do it just right and I might not convey the correct responses when a friend is talking to me. I don't want to hurt their feelings or make them think that I don't care. But if I don't try really hard, that's what will happen.

The following is from the wiki site listed above:

In Asperger's Syndrome, Intervening in Schools, Clinics, and Communities, Tony Attwood categorizes the many ways that lack of "theory of mind" can negatively impact the social interactions of people with Aspergers:

1. Difficulty reading the social and emotional messages in the eyes - People with AS don't look at eyes often, and when they do, they can't read them.

2. Making literal interpretation - AS individuals have trouble interpretting colloquialisms, sarcasm, and metaphors.

3. Being considered disrespectful and rude - Prone to egocentric behavior, individuals with Aspergers miss cues and warning signs that this behavior is inappropriate.

4. Honesty and deception - Children with Aspergers are often considered "too honest" and have difficulty being deceptive, even at the expense of hurting someone's feelings.

5. Becoming aware of making social errors - As children with Aspergers mature, and become aware of their mindblindness, their fear of making a social mistake, and their self-criticism when they do so, can lead to social phobia.

6. A sense of paranoia - Because of their mindblindness, persons with Aspergers have trouble distinguishing the difference between the deliberate or accidental actions of others, which can in turn lead to a feeling of paranoia.

7. Managing conflict - Being unable to understand other points of view can lead to inflexibility and an inability to negotiate conflict resolution. Once the conflict is resolved, remorse may not be evident.

8. Awareness of hurting the feelings of others - A lack of empathy often leads to unintentionally offensive or insensitive behaviors.

9. Repairing someone's feelings - Lacking intuition about the feelings of others, people with AS have little understanding of how to console someone or how to make them feel better.

10. Recognizing signs of boredom - Inability to understand other people's interests can lead AS persons to be inattentive to others. Conversely, people with AS often fail to notice when others are uninterested.

11. Introspection and self-consciousness - Individuals with AS have difficulty understanding their own feelings or their impact on the feelings of other people.

12. Clothing and personal hygiene - People with AS are unaffected by peer pressure. As a result, they often do what is comfortable and are unconcerned about their impact on others.

13. Reciprocal love and grief - Since people with AS react more practically than emotionally, their expressions of affection and grief are often short and weak.

14. Understanding of embarrassment and faux pas - Although persons with AS have an intellectual understanding of embarrassment and faux pas, they are unable to grasp concepts on an emotional level.

15. Coping with criticism - People with AS are compelled to correct mistakes, even when they are made by someone in a position of authority, such as a teacher. For this reason, they can be unwittingly offensive.

16. Speed and quality of social processing - Because they respond through reasoning and not intuition, AS individuals tend to process social information more slowly than the norm, leading to uncomfortable pauses or delays in response.

17. Exhaustion - As people with AS begin to understand theory of mind, they must make a deliberate effort to process social information. This often leads to mental exhaustion.