Two Years Married

It’s hard to believe that Sean and I have been married for two years! Our marriage is officially a toddler! …but I like to think it’s more graceful. In honor of our anniversary, I am going to start a new tradition, and you all get to witness its beginning. All two of you wonderful people who read my blog.

Each year, I’m going to post one thing I learned about marriage, and since I’m a bit behind, this year I’m going to post for year one too. As well. Also.

Let’s go!

Year 1: Sean and I complement each other very well.

We have very different strengths, but they seem to match up just perfectly with the other’s weaknesses. Basically, if you were to combine us into one person, it would probably be the perfect human. (Or it would be comprised of all our weaknesses and fail at everything.)

A few examples…

The sale and purchase of our homes: Although we didn’t technically close on the sale of our first house or purchase of our second one in year one, most of the heavy lifting happened before March. I am very reckless comfortable when it comes to money, so when it became too stressful for Sean to handle, I swooped in and took over the financial side of everything while he focused on the other details. Balance.

Becoming a doggie retirement home: Bailey has been to the doctor six times in the last four months, resulting in about $1,000 worth of medical bills. He has skin allergies and keeps giving himself a hotspot as a result. I caught the last one right as it was beginning to form, and I thought that I had stopped him in time and he was on his way to healing…but then I spotted blood. I was in the middle of getting ready for work when I noticed it, and I immediately just stopped everything to have a good cry. Sean walked in, saw the blood, said nothing, and just put his hand on my back. I told him that I wanted to set all the pets loose on the streets and let them find new homes. I obviously didn’t mean that, but instead of telling me I didn’t mean that, he made a perfectly timed joke: “I think Carly could live off her fat for a little while, but Alli and Bailey probably wouldn’t last long.” If I had been in better spirits, I probably would have noted that Millie would murder someone on the rich side of Snead Island and be living it up in her victim’s mansion within a week of street chicken life. I hope she would let Michelle live with her too.

Troubles at work: Because this blog can easily be found by googling my name, I’m going to keep this brief and vague. Between my two stints at my current company, I worked for an agency with no real benefits, very little pay and absolutely no work-life balance. (This was also a valuable lesson in Being a Patient Millennial and Putting in Your Time Instead of Jumping Ship to Go to a Shiny Agency an Hour from Home the Moment Things Get Rough.) There was a solid three-month period where I came home from work crying every day. Literally. Instead of saying, “Hey, you big baby. You decided to make this career change, so suck it up and stop ruining my evenings” – which would have been totally justified – Sean comforted me every day and offered advice when I wanted it.

On second thought, I guess this is less about us complementing each other and more about Sean being able to anticipate and mitigate my meltdowns.

Year 2: If you do a chore poorly enough times, you won’t have to do it ever again.

I have been banned from loading the dishwasher.

I am very free-spirited when it comes to my loading method, and I think that cups and bowls should be allowed to intermingle, but Sean runs a much stricter household. It only took five years of living together for him to decide that dishes are not my forte. (Neither is taking out the trash or doing laundry.)

I think I am this👌 close to getting banned from cleaning up dog pee. Poor Bailey is on steroids and has accidents regularly because of the increased water intake. Every time I clean up his puddles, Sean ends up coming behind me and recleaning the area because I “missed a spot.”

I feel safe sharing my hopes and dreams here, and if I’m being honest, I sincerely hope that one day Sean will deem me bad at Not Being Retired and ban me from that too.