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Last week my husband and I made cookies for breakfast. It is supposed to be healthier to eat a batch of cookies, or really any dessert, early in the morning rather than later at night. This way we have more time to burn off those extra calories.
That’s not why we made them, though. We made them because the night before I’d experimented with making Pasta Puttanesca (not bad, though I think in the future I’d just swap the anchovies for tuna), and its smell still hung around the kitchen. I figured the best way to get rid of it quickly would be to bake something to overpower dinner’s lingering scent.
One of the reasons why I love my husband is because he was immediately on board with the cookies for breakfast idea (though I can think of few people who wouldn’t be). Not only that, but my idea reminded him of why he loves my brain so much, and why he married it.
Last week I said that we shouldn’t have everything in common with our spouses, or at least that we ought to have some separate activities or hobbies. However, we don’t want to have nothing in common with each other either. I know for me perhaps the greatest joy of being married is getting to spend most of my time with someone whose thoughts compliment mine so well.
When I’m feeling lazy, he often is too. When I’m not hungry and want to slack off for dinner, he doesn’t mind. I’m a complete dork and often think the dumbest things are funny, but luckily he thinks they’re funny as well. I know it’s been said to death, but the strongest foundation of marriage isn’t love, it’s friendship.
There are multiple kinds of love and one isn’t necessarily greater than the others. We can love our friends, but those of us who are married ought to love one friend more than the rest, and that’s the person to whom we’re married. I guess maybe it’s because I was friends with my husband before I married him, but I can’t imagine what love means without friendship already being there.
I see it sometimes on the television; two characters barely spend any time together, then all of a sudden they’re in love. But all of their time spent together, perhaps for plot-related reasons, is so overwrought. Everything is dramatic, and epic, and passionate – and you know what, I don’t care about those characters. When their relationship is threatened or ends, I don’t bat an eye. If I don’t see a couple goofing off or having fun together, then I’m not invested in their relationship.
That’s how I view love in real life, how I view my own marriage. Maybe that’s why my view of romance is more laid-back, because I feel like I spend most of my time being a friend to Jonathan. I’m in love with him and reminded of it daily, but most of the time I feel like we goof around, rather than be passionately in love, however those couples act (because they’re only shown in serious situations on television).
Maybe I think that’s abnormal because of media representations. And really, I don’t care. I’d much rather be married to my best friend, and spend time playing around with him, then be a part of a fraught, if passionate, love affair.
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*(The above image by phanlop88 is from freedigitalphotos.net).