My wife and I have been a quarter century married. I find this fairly remarkable, given some of my previous relationships. Heck, we went out for 18 months in the mid-1990s then broke up. Then we got married three years later. I’m trying to explain how.
At least part of it is that we have negotiated over the years the fact that we don’t process information the same way. She’s WAY better than I am in terms of remembering names. When we meet someone on the street who recognizes me, she often introduces herself to the person because she knows there’s a 50/50 chance that I can’t remember their names, even though I know HOW I know them.
Our filing systems are not compatible. She files with the tab in the front and I put it in the back. But mostly, it’s the categories. She files documents by year, so if I wanted to find the warranty on the refrigerator, I’d have to look in the file for 20… ; I have no idea. I would have put it in an appliances folder. So she files and retrieves that stuff.
She’s watched the news far more than she had before I met her. I used to be stunned that she was unaware of several stories of significance. I’m not talking one-day news but ongoing narratives. When I would observe how the new story Y is like or unlike previous story X, she said she had never heard about story X. Hmm.
We have someone do our taxes. This is to ensure domestic tranquility because doing our taxes was… fraught. I was a 1040A/1040 EZ guy before. She itemizes heavily. We have bank/credit union accounts that are hers, mine, and ours. This is a very good thing.
Moving
A massively important thing is that we moved a year after we got married. She owned a two-family dwelling. I moved in, getting rid of a lot of my stuff, including a clock radio, the first item I ever purchased with a credit card, from Sears. Only two years earlier, I had bought a piece of real furniture, a love seat, but there was no room for that.
She said she was making room for her stuff. But it felt that she was creating space for MY things in HER place. I should give props to our then-pastor at our then-church who advocated for us to get OUR place.
We seem to have different roles in terms of raising the daughter, and increasingly, it’s the daughter deciding who is most qualified to address said topic.
I have learned to stop fretting that when she says we’re leaving church, or wherever, it’s not really when we’re going. I’ve brought reading matter for this very purpose. She’s made a concerted effort not to be late, especially when she sets the time.
Increasingly, she finds me funny. I mean ha-ha funny. Either my material is better or she’s more indulgent.
But mostly, we’re married this long because of alchemy. Heck, I don’t know.
“Project 2025’s 
On Tuesday, May 7, at the Washington Avenue branch of the Albany Public Library, I attended an event introducing the 2024 APL trustee candidates, who will be up for election on Tuesday, May 21.
My wife is a good mom. There, I said it. As I’ve noted, we came to parenthood from different perspectives. She seemed confident in knowing that this was something she wanted to do and likely would do well at. Conversely, I’ve been consistent in thinking that I have no idea what I’m doing.
Here’s this week’s