it's another post about...

a book and adultery.

Please don't think I'm obsessed with these two things. It just so happens that I had no idea what this was about when, as I mentioned in a previous post that Jen loaned it to me. I didn't even crack it open. She gave it to me, oh geez, a month and a half ago. And I opened the front cover and read it. On Saturday.


Here's what I started writing about it 4 days ago...
Say When by Elizabeth Berg contains a subject matter that we've all discussed here and there a while back...marriage and adultery. I didn't know it when I picked it up. The cover and title, as my husband pointed out, seem to suggest another sort of relationship activity. But come Saturday afternoon and 256 pages later I knew the story is, at it's core, about adultery in a marriage.

Of course, it got me thinking about previous posts/blog discussions, friends dealing with this subject in their marriage right now, and my own opinions on the matter in reference to my marriage. But that's not what I want to talk about. We've done that. And frankly, I don't want to do it again right now, because although I know my opinions may change in the future, they haven't changed a bit since the last blog-scussion so, for now, we'll leave that be.

Instead, what I thought about - and what was briefly mentioned in the book - was why I got married and why I married who I did in the first place ... seven and a half years ago. I realize that I was young, we were both young. We were both world travelers, we had a history together - heck, we'd known each other for over five years. But we had no idea what marriage was all about. Of course we would never have admitted it back then. We wouldn't even have known we should admit it! We were in love and that's why people get married. Right?

the first moment he saw me after I'd
been out of the country for six months
photo by Cameron Ingalls

We've talked about how naive we both were about marriage, what it meant and how it worked. But what we both still agree on is that we were right to get married and we were right to get married when we did.

If you know us, in the real world, you know our marriage has not been all flowers and rainbows. Without going into detail, I'll just say that in our first 2 years of marriage we experienced 5 out of the 7 things they say will kill a marriage. So, we pretty much figure if we, and our marriage, could survive those early years, then we can survive the rest of life.

There is an argument for waiting to get married until you know who you are, until you're an adult and you've come into yourself, found who you are. I'll discuss that. But I'm going to be bias on the subject. What? I just am.

I want to leave the post with this... I like that we've learned what marriage and a true life-long relationship is all about together, as a couple. I like that we've known each other as teenagers, and that we've shared that angst. I like that together, we've grown up, figured out who we are, and learned what being an adult really means. I like that we're young and yet we've already known each other for over twelve years. I like that we've had tragedy and survived through it together. I like that there's been time to see our relationship evolve.



I like that he surprises me
with little chocolate vegan delights right when it's that time of the month





I like that we're best friends. I like that he makes up new names for me still, like he did when we first fell in love. I like that we can support each other in our dreams. I like that he loves me and I can tell. I like that I love him. I like that I still feel like this is a new love, no, not everyday. Not every minute. But, I still get butterflies, and my heart still skips a beat, and I wouldn't change a thing about my life.