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The Republic will endure until Congress finds it can bribe the public with the public's money. – Alexis de Tocqueville

Lately a lot of people have been asking me how married life is going. I suppose that’s a normal question for people to ask newlyweds. Instead of continuing to tell people one at a time, here’s my public update.

As you know, Jenna and I got married last September on the beach in Maine. Before that, we had dated for 3 1/2 years, and she’d lived here in Kansas City for 3 of those years. We were already pretty used to each other by the time we got married, so the little daily annoyances weren’t really an issue for us.

After we got married, Jenna’s brother moved out, giving us our entire house for the first time in almost 3 years. Yay!

Anyhow, there are a lot of reasons why our relationship works so well. We couldn’t be more different in our personalities. She’s social, outgoing, energetic, and has a million things going on at all times. I’m a homebody, quiet, and try to spend as much time as possible away from social settings.

But for some reason, it still works great. The main reason is we both appreciate each others’ personalities. I like her outgoing, friendly personality. I’m not the jealous type, so I’m fine with her going out with friends, having all the social interaction she can handle. I don’t get mad at her for not being home with me all the time.

By the same token, she likes my stable, quiet personality. I’m sure she wishes she could get me out of the house more, but she understands that’s not who I am and she doesn’t get mad at me for being myself.

I think that’s really the secret. Any 2 people can have a good relationship if they appreciate the others’ personality and allow them to be themselves. It’s when one person tries to change the other person that things fall apart, because let’s face it – by the time you’re 30, you are who you are.

She knows that I’ll take care of things like the bills, maintaining the house and cars, etc. I know she’ll take care of making friends and keeping me meeting new people, even if that takes place at our house (the ultimate social event that makes both of us happy…). Her ease at making friendships is something I will probably never have, so I needed to marry someone who had that. And she will probably never have the focus or desire to handle bills, maintenance, etc. She needs someone in her life that is steady, and that’s me.

It wasn’t seamless from the start. We both had well established habits and single lifestyles when we met. But we knew we wanted to be together and learning to appreciate each others’ strengths instead of being unhappy about our differences was the key.

In addition to being a friendly, outgoing person, Jenna also constantly surprises me with her huge heart. She is not a superficial friend to people. She genuinely cares about their well being. And she supports me in what I want to do, whatever that may be.

A peaceful, stable, happy relationship does wonders for bringing balance to your life. But sorry, Jenna’s already taken.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 1:15 PM and is filed under Domestic Bliss, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.