The other day a mate posted the following fairy tale on Facebook:

I replied that I still did all these things and them made a comment about the availability of sexual encounters in the married world versus the single world.

I wrote this post sitting on the lounge one evening chuckling to myself as I often do when making Facebook posts.  My wife asked me if I was deleting all my friends again or making new enemies (she has counselled me many times about drinking and texting and/or FaceBooking – and especially blogging!)

I have to tell you that I am probably one of the luckies men in the world.  My wife and I were childhood sweethearts, the product of our parents being life long friends.  We had our first encounter in my ‘fort’ (I think the politically correct non-gender name is cubby house).  We met after experiencing our lives with others in a chance encounter walking down the street about 30 years after that first fumbly kiss. It then seemed like overnight, we were going out, moved in together, bought a house and got married.

Just for information of the doubters that romance is dead in later life, I did propose on the Eiffel Tower and presented a ring that I had made and carried fearfully in a back pack (my then wife to be was perplexed by the back pack as I had complained so many times about how I thought carrying one was a pain in the arse) all the way from Australia.  And if your asking, I did speak to her father first, more as a courtesy: he did ask if I was asking permission and I said not I was telling him.

Both my wife and I had our share of dud, bad and mad relationships before we met.  To quote Dr Gordon Livingston in “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now, a second (or third!) marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

And that’s exactly what we are.

However….  our marriage is not a fairy tale of romantic walks along the beach and moonlit dinners.  We both wanted this to work more than anything and wanted it to be better than our past ‘things’.  We both had the same ideas about a few things but even some of these important things only came out over the last 7 years we have been together, some recently.  But, there were a few fundamental things I believe we both have in common:

– We love each other and tell each other often.
– We celebrate our past and learn from it.
– We tell the truth.
– We put the other first.
– We kiss each other hello and goodbye, every time.
– We let the other be themselves, and sometimes when that is not okay, it is okay.

This list is probably endless but I read an article the other day where a young man was about to get married and his father said “Marriage isn’t for you.”  You probably guessed it already that marriage is really not for you, it is all about your partner.  If you are not happy because they are happy, and if you are not a main contributor to that happiness, then perhaps marriage is for you; and that will be why you end up with you.

This post is called ‘Better Wife’ but really it should be better husband.  I think trying to be a better man is about being a better husband.  Perhaps not being the best that you can be, but actually being better than you ever thought you could be.

I have my bad days.  I am sometimes not so good a husband. But, before you can be better, you have to actually notice what you are now.

I think the worlds shortest fairy tale is “Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl to marry him and she said, no, I want to marry you.”