Matchmaker, matchmaker?

My husband and I found each other in college. I knew pretty quickly that he and I were meant for a lifetime together, and he eventually came to the same conclusion, but we both ultimately decided that we were a good couple. When I accepted our fated union, I really never expected that we would be anything but perfectly matched for one another, and I think that expectation has made all the difference.

There are days, I admit, when I question the cosmic wisdom that claims he and I are meant to be together. The days when the differences are more apparent than the similarities, I just remind myself that sometimes opposites complement each other better than if both people are exactly the same.

So, I wonder, now, after twelve years of marriage and sixteen years of being together, whether we would still be compatible enough to survive the guantlet of an online dating service. If we listed that we were single and searching and we could lie about the children who already bind us, would we have the necessary characteristics to be matched up again?

Our individual preferences and dreams likely don't entirely match up with the life that we've shaped through the years. I'm sure he'd list his passion for sports and coaching and I'd admit I do enjoy watching all kinds of sporting events. He'd brag about his handy-man skills and I think I would reluctantly admit my fear of fixing things. I plan and organize and he flies by the seat of his pants. I wonder if that would move us closer together or further apart on the matchmaking scale. I love books and writing, and he enjoys creating the musical backdrop to any mood. Does the matchmaking formula look for such complementary characteristics or is the criterion more dependent upon similarities?

We are a mixed bag and some things we share almost exactly, while other aspects of our personalities are so different, I can hardly understand how we could possibly live peacefully in the same house. He's a computer whiz, I'm an impatient user who threatens frequently to give up the computer and just buy a typewriter. He does the bills, I buy the groceries and I am apparently in charge of cleaning the house too, but some things just don't happen at all. We both avoid the laundry, but reluctantly wash clothes when we are working through piles of dirty laundry to locate our children who have become buried in the mess. I take care of health care, and I record our lives with cameras and camcorders while he works to supply financial stability for our house. Would a matchmaking service find our strengths and weaknesses as complementary as they've become? Would it have been able to predict how effectively we would fashion ourselves one around the other?

I don't know, and, as tempting as it is to see if a matchmaking service would match us up again today, I am too chicken to find out. It would be a dangerous game to play if we went out looking for our "best" match through a service that claims expertise in pairing couples. We would undoubtedly find other matches who could fit into our preferences and desires, and in all liklihood there might be a number of people who could be potential matches. It would open the door to justified questioning and could cause irreversible damage to the house we've built together.

There is no such thing as a perfect match and there are other people who would satisfy relationship desires and needs, but of course in a unique and different way than my husband does. It is hard to make the argument that it would be any better, because there are always gaps in human relationships. No matter who the two members of any given pair are, the relationship becomes an entity of its own, and the survival of that relationship is completely dependent upon the willingness of both members of the pair to give equally to the union.

I know that we've become the best possible match for the other, whether a service agreed with us or not. I guess I'll stop wondering how someone else might match us up and concentrate more on building up the match that we already have.

Accepting I'm Not His First True Love

This morning it was below zero outside when the alarm went off. We purposefully set it every night so that we can hit the snooze at least once before we have to rouse the troops to get them off to school. As usual, my husband cuddled up closer to me and tightened the covers around us making it even harder to get out of bed. We quickly had company, as our youngest crawled up my side and then on top of the covers and me. I love that time in the morning. Whether it is just he and I, or all five of us, I love when we don't have to be anywhere and we can just be together for a little bit cuddled in the covers of our bed. I knew this morning wasn't one of those times, but my husband joked, "Let's just stay in bed today."

"Ok, and then we can sell off parts of the bed when I am no longer being paid for my job," I reminded him.

"I know, but it's just so cold outside."

We procrastinated for a few minutes, and then with much more energy, my husband threw off the covers and said, "Yeah, you better get going, I have to leave at 3:30, so you need to get to work so you can get home."

I chuckled to myself about the change in attitude because I knew that the new energy happened when my husband realized that he was going to be able to spend some time with his true love.

It is a love affair that I do not yet understand, and I probably never will...completely. He is hardly as passionate about much else in his life as he is about his love. He will wake up at ungodly hours and stay up way too late just to get his fix. He times his haircuts and shaving around it, and it is the only time (aside from weddings and funerals) that you will find him in a suit and tie. He will gladly track down a sitter so he can go do it and if we really sat down to think about it, all of the decisions we have made about the jobs we keep and the places we live are dependent upon his love.

I told him that this morning...that I felt like the "other woman." He acted appalled for a second, and then said, "No, what does that mean?"

"Oh, you know...that seductive tigress. She has so much more than I'll ever be able to give you."

"WHAT are you talking about?" He looked at me really confused now.

"Don't try to pretend that hockee (mockingly and ineffectually pronounced with a french accent) doesn't hold the real keys to your heart." He smiled now, relieved that he hadn't forgotten about a mistress or something.

"Oh, hockey is the other woman, huh? I don't think so."

He's right, she's not really the other woman, but she is his other love. He has loved and identified with hockey for twenty years longer than he has known me. It is an enormous part of who he is, and it's not that I am finally coming to terms with that, but rather I am acknowledging the importance of helping him to foster that relationship.

We spend our winters in Minnesota, complaining about bitter temps and questioning daily it seems our decision to live here. We don't have to be here, but we choose to. Among other reasons, Minnesota is where his love was born, and he is thrilled to be able to share it with his kids.

There were indications that I would probably never be his greatest love. The first year he and I dated, I was hard-pressed to see much enthusiasm from him at all. I know now he was reeling from hockey-playing circumstances that were rocking his world, but at any rate, he was hardly happy about much. When I came to Minnesota with him for the first time, he introduced me to a side of him that I hadn't yet seen.

One of the mornings we were staying at his mom's house, my husband shook me out of bed and dragged me upstairs because I just had to see this. You have to realize that I expected that he and I were going to be married some day, and I was on the lookout for signs that an engagement was pending. I thought he had sprung a romantic leak, and I ran upstairs with him, anticipating a surprise kneeling. He ushered me over to the window and worked to wipe away condensation that inevitably builds when it is cold enough outside. My expectation shifted from ring... to car (because I needed one of those too) and I peered out to see a large city truck spraying water on the snow. My immediate thought was, "what is that idiot doing?" and before I could utter any syllable of confusion my husband yelled (bounding mind you) "They're flooding the rink...they're flooding the rink!!!" After a few years living our winters here in Minnesota, I can see that passion starting to form in each of our children now too. Their eyes light up the same way his did when the rink is being flooded for the first time.

They can do something that I will never be able to do. They can skate and they can play hockey, and my husband can be around a game that formed him and that he loves with literally every fiber of his being. I just know a little piece of him would die, if I ever asked him to give it up, and because I love him, I never will. He deserves a chance to be near what he loves, and to be honest, it gives him the energy to better love the people and life around him, and that includes me. I'm starting to love the other woman, for helping to form the man that loves me too.

Our marriage will last because he leaves me...and I'm okay with that!

The running of our family depends upon separation, and without a willingness to be vulnerable and trusting, our marriage would never last through this phase of our lives. I look at those magical couples who are with each other more than they are apart (most often the kidless-dog-owning-ones), and I am partially awe-struck and generally impressed, but I think the major emotion I feel is one of sadness. For a while I was sad that it wasn’t us. Although I hadn’t spent any childhood energy on fantasizing about my husband or our relationship, I think somewhere in the depths of my heart I had hoped that once I was married I would be “with” that person forever. My current sadness for those have-to-be-together-all-the-time-couples is that statistically many of them may never see the other side of married life, and have a chance to enjoy the confidence that comes with knowing you are loved and honored even when you are not in the physical presence of your spouse. I see heart-linked couples and they sometimes seem more concerned about continually reminding each other that they are connected than they are about simply enjoying each other’s company.

Now granted, I know that not every husband is completely honest about what he might be doing when he is not with his wife, nor does every wife make only faithful decisions when faced with temptation. I count myself among the lucky that I am in a relationship based on open and genuinely honest communication. I have come to trust my husband with every fiber of my being, and he generally does exactly what he says he is going to do. I, too, try to be true to my word, and we’ve even talked openly about what it would mean if one of the two of us wanted to cheat on our marriage. We both agree that if there was a desire to be adulterous, there would be nothing that the other spouse could do to keep it from happening. It is so hard to imagine him stepping out on us, that I don’t even think I can fake what it would feel like. My ability to identify with the “cheating wife” is also such a foreign concept that it is easier for me to just talk about why trust works for us.

My husband and I have been married nearly twelve years, and he has worn his wedding ring one day. For our wedding and reception, his band was on the ring finger of his left hand, but starting on the first full day of our marriage, and every day since, he has kept his ring on a gold chain around his neck. He has been to bars, he has been around single women, he has gone to raucous parties and that entire time he has gone with a naked hand. My seven-year-old daughter asked him one day how anyone knows he is married if he doesn’t wear his ring on his hand. His answer was simple, “It doesn’t matter if anyone else knows I am married, it matters that your mom and I know we are married.” It’s true, and I am starting to understand the depth of that statement more and more.

I do a lot of things alone with our kids, and on and off through the last couple of years, I have allowed negative emotions to creep into my thinking about what that must look like to the casual observer. I know that my oldest overheard a family talking about us at church and one of the kids whispered, “I think they don’t have a dad.” My kids know they have a dad…they have a great dad, and I know I have a husband…what does it really matter what anyone else thinks? Our lives are goofy, and for two months of the year we have a long distance, commuting relationship. My husband lives 900 miles away while I hold down the fort with the kids. For one month we are high-fiving each other as we both head out of state to work on the weekends and a parade of family and hired help keep the schedules running and the house afloat. For four months we work together from home during the week and then evenings on the weekend I am home alone or running kids from here to there. For maybe one month total through the year we are the “typical” married couple with our own work to do and we come together for the weekend as a family. Normal is most definitely the exception in our house, and I feel blessed that I am finally starting to embrace that.

What does it mean to be “with” someone without actually being “with” someone? That’s what forced separation has taught me. It means that you know someone out there makes decisions that include you. It means that you make decisions with that person in mind too, and there is a movement toward a common goal that happens every day no matter where we are. Some people never get to this point in their relationships, and for that, I am sad for them. I no longer prescribe to the ideology that everyone deserves that family picture that looks polished and beautiful but that is based on the gloss more than the goodness. What everyone deserves is someone who loves them unconditionally and who sacrifices for their goals and dreams. What everyone deserves is a chance to confidently go through life knowing that they’ll never be hurt on purpose. What everyone deserves is a chance to be missed and the joy that comes with reuniting. When a marriage is based in truth and grounded in love there is not one way that the family photo looks from day to day, and even if I have to photoshop my husband in, I know he is my husband, and I am his wife.