person I should be doing that with. Which okay, but are you really my friend, then?
I was seventeen when I met WH. We dated for two and a half years, and then we moved in together. We lived together for six months, were engaged for six months, and have been married for eight and a half years. When we married, people said we were too young. Maybe we were. Maybe if we both had it to do over again, we would have waited. Dated longer. Lived together for awhile. But when we talked about all of that, the decision that we came to was simple.
We would have to grow up together before we could grow old together, and that process would take place whether we were married or not. What should we have done?  Broke up because we met too early, and see if our paths crossed again? Lived together for years instead of committing to marriage? None of those more cautious options made any sense to us.
So maybe I thought the growing old would start a little sooner, and the growing up wouldnt take so long. Maybe I thought that the whole thing would be easier, or at least never be quite this hard. But does any of that change where were at now? I can say, after a lot of soul searching, that it doesnt.
Will we make it? I dont know, but I know that we are the ones who answer that question through our conscious  decision, and it is ours and no one elses.
My mother, amazingly, has been a huge source of strength and insight for me with all of this, as she and my father shared many of our struggles. She was successful, driven, hungry for achievement and recognition and challenge. He couldnt seem to find his place in the working world. This hampered their ability to run their household. Except they had a baby. Me. They were five or so years older than we are now. My Mom stuck by him, admittedly mostly to avoid being a single mom. My Dad found his place, something that he could live with, something that offered his family the stability we needed so badly. They made things right between them.
Things got wrong again, after that, many times, and theyve always managed to make it right again. But only because they chose to stick around long enough. At any time, either one could have given up and walked away. And I can certainly see, in fact, I maintained the opinion for a long time, that they might have been much better off. Much happier overall. I realize now how utterly false that is, and why.
They always would have wondered what might have been.
You can argue that they probably wonder what might have been if they had left, that their contentment is a veneer for acceptance and aversion of risk.
I would contend that they cant walk away, because they know their love at its best, and they cant give it up.
I cant give up. I cant decide that I will never have what Ive had before. I cant decide that WH and I wont both do some learning and growing in all of this struggle, and that we wont look at each other one day and say I learned so much from that rough patch, and Im sorry for what I must have put you through, but Im grateful for the understanding and strength it gave us.
On December 13th, 1996, I met WH. Seven days later, we agreed not to see other people. And so it began.
Is he a model husband? Hardly. Does he have some growing to do? God, I hope so. Is he mine? Absolutely.
Perhaps, when wondering why I put up with WH, one might consider why exactly theyre so lucky to know enough to ask the question in the first place, and I why Im lucky enough that theyre asking.

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