Every now and again I confess to lurking on the Chronicle Forums and rarely, I'm motivated to reply to something that gets me to thinking. Such was the case tonight when I read a thread about money, marriage and horses, except that I'm going to share my "reply" here on this blog rather than on the thread.
It's no secret that Melissa and I have both been married before and this, plus the fact that both our marriages ended in divorce, tends to colour our decisions on a lot of topics that neither of us gave much thought to before. We can argue with the best of them, but we never have argued very much about what ought to be his and hers because in this marriage there is a lot more ours than there is his and hers. This is true of our money, our blogs, our Facebook accounts, our pets, our privacy and our property, and we set it up this way on purpose. It's our belief that marriage is a lifelong partnership, and as such there is no aspect of our lives that ought to be off limits to the other partner. We very much believe that if you wouldn't say or do it in front of your partner you probably ought not to be saying or doing it behind their backs, either. And by giving each other access to every aspect of our lives, we put our money where our mouth is on this topic. So far, so good !
Maintaining a good marriage is a lot of work and it's been our experience that most activities are/can be either marriage enhancers or marriage destroyers to a greater or lesser degree. There is a lot of give and take in this house when it comes to spending money and hobbies. It's probably true that Melissa doesn't spend as much of our income on horses as she would if she weren't married to me. My comeback is that I don't spend nearly as much on liquor and wild women as I might if I weren't married to her. Compromise, eh ? Such is life.
We both recognize that our answers aren't going to be right for anyone else. Again, such is life. The main thing is that they are right for us, and reading a thread like the one on COTH makes me feel better and more strongly that I chose exactly the right marriage partner for Round 2 !
It's Go Time!
22 hours ago
4 comments:
G is my Round 2, FWIW :) We're kind of the opposite. We have clearly defined His Stuff and Her Stuff. We're both much happier, I think, than in the early years when we were trying to be 100% interested in each other's hobbies. It works for us!
"Nearly as much"? Snork!
I think one of the best things for marriages is that transparency; shared/open access to email accounts, etc. Honesty and willingness to work through issues would make a lot of happier households.
And working that idea out *before* tying the knot would be even better. Some couples take too long to figure that out.
I love CoTH, but tend to fall in for too long and don't go over there very often. Which thread was this?
I believe it was entitled "Non Horsey Husbands and SO's...do they contribute to your horse habit" or something to that effect.
Jason
Funder, the key words in your post are "It works for us". Ultimately, that's what's important.
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