Four years of bliss
Next week will mark our fourth wedding anniversary, and time sure does fly when you’re having fun!
We got married late in life (in our 50s) and both for the first time, so our lifelong friends who got married in their 20s and 30s and are by now (and their own admission) “old married couples” still look at my husband and I as goofy newlyweds. We still feel like that, too, which I believe is a good thing.
We recently visited some dear friends who truly are newlyweds, having just tied the knot last New Year’s Eve. They are both older than us and both sadly lost their previous longtime spouses to terminal illnesses. Happily, they found one another several years later and are perfectly matched.
We all had a good chuckle one evening when the wife couldn’t get one of her prized and pricey kitchen gadgets to work properly. In exasperation, she exclaimed to her husband, “Well, you got it wet and now it won’t work!” It was clear the kitchen was her domain and he had invaded it. A little bit of a tense exchange followed before we all started laughing and she asked me, “You guys are still newly married… do you still have moments like this trying to get used to each other?” I told her, “Oh, yes! I still sigh when I go to load the dishwasher and have to rearrange everything my husband has already put inside it.”
We all laughed again before I said, “But I realized a long time ago that I appreciate him loading any of the dishes and if I don’t like the way he does it, that’s my problem, not his.”
It was fun and interesting talking about adjusting to married life and living with someone else as an older adult or someone who lived alone for years. Both my husband and I were single our whole lives until four years ago and it was a big adjustment to live with another person. To this day, I marvel at how easy the transition to married life was for both of us.
The couple we were visiting were both married to their late spouses for many years, so they had experience being married and raising families. The big adjustment for them was going back to living alone for several years, but that doesn’t mean there still isn’t an adjustment period with their new union.
I like to think that our adjustment period is over, but we’re still learning new things about each other every day. My mom used to joke after my dad retired that they were driving each other nuts. Our recent retirements from work mean much more “togetherness,” which, so far, hasn’t caused any issues.
I chuckled again today while loading (and rearranging) the dishwasher plates. If that’s the biggest adjustment I’ve had to make during four years of wedded bliss, then I am one lucky gal!
Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.