After eight years together, things certainly have changed.  So much for the better, but several things less better.  Not worse, but not ideal, either.  There is just so much change that goes on in life, in each of us as individuals and in us as a couple.  I would be lying if I were to say there were never times that I had doubts, that I thought maybe we’d be better off apart.  But those, thankfully, are few and far between and it doesn’t take long before I realize how dumb it is to even think that I could make it through a moment of my life without you.  I love you.  I do.  I love you absolutely, more than my own life.  I would die a thousand deaths to spare you one minute of pain.  I would do anything for you without question.  Even that one thing.

I used to be really good at writing you love letters.  I miss that.  I miss how easy it was to gush and tell you how fucking amazing you are; how lucky I am to have you.  It isn’t that those feelings have subsided and I’m left empty of words or emotion.  Oh no.  In fact, I love you more right in this minute than I ever have in my life, more than I have loved anyone or anything or even all that combined.  My love for you is so immense that it cannot be contained.  There are no ways to measure it or to describe it adequately.  There are no words or figures or works of art, no songs, no books, no retarded interpretive dance routines, no anything that could illustrate the way you make me feel here…inside. It is immeasurable.  It is immense.  It is like how much you hate Celine Dion and Mariah Carey combined, only a bazillion times more, if that’s even possible.  Which it is, because I said so.  I think the hesitation in writing those  letters has been a reflection of where we’ve found ourselves lately…wandering without any real direction, without giving a whole lot of thought to what we have here, this wondrous connection to one another.  We forgot about how special it is because it gets so shitty with day to day life.  Though we never go a day without saying I love you, it has become quite automatic.  We say it because we’re supposed to – and we DO mean it – but we’ve somehow managed to forget to feel it, to really comprehend what those words mean.

One thing that’s been interesting over the last months is how we’ve worked to have fights.  Not really fights, but arguments and discussions.  It isn’t that we’ve tried to start them, but that we’ve been more honest with one another than we ever have before.  We’ve worked hard not to hold our feelings back to spare one another pain.  Not because we’re eager to hurt, but because it is essential to our survival as a couple.   We’ve only come to realize how important that is, and how our inability to express ourselves for fear of hurting one another or causing conflict has affected our relationship in some profound ways.  We’ve lost a bit of ourselves as individuals for the sake of us, and now we are working hard to find who we are within this relationship.  It’s a struggle now because so much is changing.  We are spending more time apart when, for so many years, we spent every spare moment we had together.  It is a challenge, but so necessary, and now the moments we have together are precious and meaningful and not filled with television and discussions about the weather or why Meryl Streep deserved that Oscar more than Sandra Bullock, which she totally did even though I like Sandra Bullock a lot.

Last week we sat in the living room and talked about our lives, about our struggles and the changes we’re going through and it was the first time in a very long time that we talked about something that mattered to us.  It was amazing, to have that connection again and to look you in the eye and see you.  Not the you on the outside with your tiny ears and crooked smile (but oh GOD DAMN, how that gets me every time), but into that part of you no one else ever gets to see.  Your heart and soul swirling inside of you and, good god Janie, it is so stunning.  You are so beautiful.

I just want you to know that even when things are bad and I question and wonder, I never stop remembering how lucky I am to know you and have you in my life. I am blessed to fall asleep and wake up beside you each and every day.  I am immensely lucky to share a life with you, especially considering how emotionally retarded I am so much of the time.  It is not an exaggeration to tell you that I didn’t quite understand what love was until you came into my life.  Yeah, sure, I’d been loved and I had loved, but not as completely and as selflessly as I have been fortunate enough to love you.  You have saved me from myself on countless occasions and I can never in a million years get you to understand what you mean to me.  Just imagine how much I love Terri Clark and then know that I love you at least 50% more than that.  It’s a lot, trust me on this.  That’s a lot of love and I think that it would be pretty cool if the three of made out together.  Please make it happen.

Janie, I love you.  I would give my life for you. My heart and soul are yours forever and there is nothing in this world that will keep me from trying each and every day to make what we have bigger and better.  And though we are an ordinary couple with ordinary ups and downs, to me we are the most brilliant thing the world has ever known.  I am so proud of you, and of us, and not a day will pass when I am not grateful for all of this love and crazy, smashed together in a life that I could not ever have imagined for myself, even on my best days.

As you may have guessed, Janie and I had a moment in our relationship a few weeks ago wherein we argued about some things and it’s okay, don’t worry, it wasn’t your fault.  Sometimes gay ladies fight and get upset but it doesn’t mean we don’t love you.  We worked it out together and Janie was able to discuss it in therapy where she had to role play and talk to me and tell me why she gets so defensive when I ask her what time it is.

Janie, what time is it?

YOU KNOW?  I don’t need that from you.  I’m doing the best I can!

I just wanted to know what time it was because I need to meet Carrie at 5:00.

I don’t know why you’re harping on me so much!  I paid that phone bill two weeks ago!

Janie, you’re not making any sense.

I just think you’re really being unfair.  Also, you got a stupid haircut!

Janie’s therapist thought it would be helpful to send her home with a sheet of conflict regulation statements called the Gottman Repair Checklist.  It includes statements that are helpful to conveying your feelings without escalating a discussion into an argument.  In other words, it’s for people who are total wieners, not for people like me who have spent years upon years building up a wall around my heart to ensure all my feelings belong only to me. They are not yours and you have no right to understand them. Also what’s the point in having a relationship unless you get to win all the fights regardless of being right or wrong? It’s not how you play the game, people, it’s who ends up crying when all is said and done. Let that be a lesson to you, single people. This is what you’ve been doing wrong all these years.

In response, I’ve composed a checklist of my own in direct competition with Dr. Gottman and his years upon years of research into healthy relationships. I like to refer to my list as The Uncouth Heathen Guide to A Successful Relationship.  This is how we have managed to make it work all these years.  All these eight, long, long, long, long years where every morning Janie rolls over and sees me still there by her side and says, “You again.  I can’t believe you’re still alive.”  It’s pretty magical, really.

This is Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife on their wedding day.  Gosh, Janie…this reminds me so much of us.  Look at the indifference on their faces…the take ir or leave it-ness.  It is like they could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about.  Just like you and me.  And like those two, I’m unmoved by our totally generic love for one another.  I think you’re really, really average and I’m looking forward to at least 2-2/3 more years of garden-variety marriage before we fall apart at the seams and you move to your parents house with Carson and those other two cats I can’t be bothered to remember to feed anymore.

Eight years ago today we had our first date at Typhoon! where I was wearing jeans and a black sweater and you wore something.  I’m sure you were dressed but really, let’s be honest, I was probably picturing you with your top off the whole time and couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to what clothes you had on.  It was to be a precursor for the next eight years of our life together…you wearing a top and me imagining you are not wearing a top.

We have had our ups and downs, that’s for sure.  Mostly ups, thankfully, but there were some downs and let’s not forget about those so that we can learn from them.  Specifically, I want you to learn that you shouldn’t wear a top around me, I absolutely did not move any of those bills you have misplaced, all that online shopping wasn’t done by me (God, no), there is really no good reason for you to tell me to fuck off like that one time I thought you did but misheard but I still blame you for doing it because it really sounded like you said it and even if it didn’t happen the idea that it did has hurt my feelings and the litter boxes won’t scoop themselves and God knows those three selfish cats can’t be bothered to do anything but shit in or around them and then beg for more food and pretend like we don’t exist much of the rest of the time.  I will continue to learn how awesome I am and how lucky you are to have me.  Also, I have learned to build myself a panic room in a safe location not anywhere you know in the event that you decide to murder me in my sleep or not in my sleep.  You don’t need to bother looking for it because you will never find it.  It is definitely not a carved out space between the mattresses.  Absolutely not.

Thank you for agreeing to be my wife despite, well, everything…not the least of which is this website.  I say a lot of things here about you and, as you know, a good 97% of it is grossly exaggerated or completely true.  The rest is just insane ramblings and pictures of our dog.  Anyway, what I’m trying to say  is that I love you and I’m happy to call you my wife and best friend and some of those other things that I can’t talk about because my mom reads this now.  You’re the greatest thing to ever come into my life, and I happen to have had a lot of good things come my way, so  you know, you’re super!

Also, when I came home just now I burned all your tops.  HAHAHAHAHA.  Happy Anniversary!

Life is hard! Relationships are messy. Sometimes I just run out of things to say. Feelings. All that. I usually have a lot of feelings, which is why I cry at stupid things like yogurt commercials and that documentary about the Great Wall of China. But this week I find my feelings have gone missing. I don’t really feel much of anything and it has left me empty. Gross. This is awful. I should lock myself in the closet and write poetry and practice Opus Dei rituals or something. Did you know that Pope John Paul II used to whip himself with a belt and sleep on the hard floor to remind him of the suffering of Jesus Christ? Amen.

Here’s a question I sometimes find myself waking up to in the morning: DO I LOVE HER?

Maybe it seems like an ugly question, but it isn’t.  I’ve asked this question of myself for all the time we’ve been together.  Do I love her.  YOU BET I DO! Do I love her?  FUCK YEAH! Do I love her?  SIGNS POINT TO YES! Then sometimes it’s not hard to answer, but it’s complicated by other things – relationshipy things.  Do I love her?  Yeah, but… Do I love her?  I do, but I wish… Do I love her?  Yes, even though… There hasn’t ever been a time where the first thought afterward wasn’t an easy affirmation.  Yes, what a dumb question after all these years together.  Relationships change, people change, we sometimes want things we might not have wanted before and we have to make adjustments, we have to find a new balance.  That’s the work we put in, that’s the hard part that people neglect and why, in part, things fall apart.  You forget that there’s work because yeah, you do still love her so things must be okay, it’ll all come out in the wash.  But then sometimes, after you have neglected the work and it’s not that easy and it’s not always fun, you start to waver.  Do I love her?  I think so.  Do I love her?  I’m pretty sure I do.  Do I love her? Maybe, I don’t know.  This is where things get murky, dark and they start to look unpleasant.  There are more fights.  Things aren’t as pretty as they used to be.  Relationships become tarnished and unkempt and you don’t know if it’s all still there, that feeling you used to have in the core of your soul, the one you you felt as soon as you woke up and that comforted you when you drifted off to sleep.  That feeling you took for granted.   But if you look hard, underneath the muck, you see those old moments that you built your relationship upon and you can feel it again.  You have to look harder – you have to do the work – but it’s still there.  It’s just covered by neglect and anger and pride and sloth and indifference.  But if you start to scrape that off, you see those old things, like that quiet walk in the park before there ever was a relationship to speak of, that picnic in front of the museum one sunny afternoon when that asshole at the deli put mayonnaise on your sandwich, all those times you shared uncontrollable laughter over things that wouldn’t be funny to anyone else and especially that time you stood in front of the people you love and gave her your heart and soul and made a promise to love her forever.

And you sit with your face in your hands and cry because how could you have let so much beauty get covered up by so much shit?  How could you forget that the loveliest thing you have in your life is starting to wither because you’ve neglected it.  It looked fine a few months ago, how did it get so dirty so fast?  But it happens and that’s when you have to make the decision to clean it up or let it go.  That’s when the question becomes most important.  Do I love her?  Do I love her enough to try harder?  Do I love her enough to change?  Do I love her enough to clean up the mess?  Do I love her enough to work past my anger and fear?  Do I love her enough to tell her how I feel? Do I love her?

The truth is that sometimes the answer is no.  Sometimes you look at the big picture and you are just too tired.  Tired of the same fights, the same outcomes, the same words and broken promises.  You stare at all of it heaped in a pile and it seems larger than you; insurmountable.  You can’t see the beauty anymore and you are too tired to keep looking.   You’ve given up.  What now?  How do you unravel a relationship and extricate yourself from years worth of living as a couple.  Slowly, delicately, you start to pull at the things that were yours alone; the easy stuff.  Those are my clothes, that is my book, this is my cat. Then it gets more complicated because when two people have been so immersed in one another, when a relationship is so intertwined, there are knots and struggles and pulling.  This is my bed, those are my chairs, that is my dog. The pain cuts deeper until it eats up all the love you had built your relationship upon and the two of you can no longer stand to be in the same room together.  So many years as that couple, as the ones no one ever thought would be the ones to split apart, that identity you cultivated together is gone; a victim of neglect and disrepair and fear.  Who are you now?  You start your life all over again.

The real mark of a strong relationship, of the staying power, is the fight.  Not the fight over things and bills and money, but the fight to keep it alive.  It is the passion for one another, the desire to work things out, the willingness to get our hands dirty and weather the worst of times.  We dedicate ourselves to making it through to the other side despite the odds.  We refuse to give up, even when the problems seem like a mountain between us, so we start that climb and we wade through the hurt, the jealousy, the misunderstandings, the selfishness, the anger, the pieces of our past that we let hold us back and we look it in the eye and we acknowledge it, we see it for what it is and we let it fall away.  We keep going.  We fight because this thing we have is too beautiful to give up on.  So we scratch and claw our way to the top because we made a promise that we would take on that fight no matter the odds.  We will never give up on us.  We will never be that broken.

Do I love her?

You could never imagine how much.

When Lady Gay A says to Lady Gay B that being a sexpert is difficult because they are always thinking about how to spice things up in the bedroom, Lady Gay A shall not reply sarcastically that it is a good thing Lady Gay B is not a sexpert. In addition, Lady Gay B shall not laugh out loud repeatedly after Lady Gay A expresses her upset and insists that Lady Gay B admit Lady Gay A is a sexual sensation. If Lady Gay B keeps it up, Lady Gay A has the right to take a lover. Just sayin’.

13.2.16

When Lady Gay B clips her scissor toenails, as a courtesy to Lady Gay A and the world as a whole, Lady Gay B should put the clippings directly into the garbage.  The scissor toenails do not belong atop a piece of scrap paper on Lady Gay B’s nightstand, where an unsuspecting and good intentioned Lady Gay A will find them, but only after they have been scattered about the bed and floor in a frenzy of cleaning. Just sayin’.