The Secrets of a Happy Marriage

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The witty posts from Heather’ s DH, Matt, got me thinking about my own darling husband and our relationship.  My DH hates to write anything so he would never agree to write a blog entry but if you meet him in person I’m sure he’d be happy to lament, at length, about what it’s like living with me and my passions.  CPS is one of them but there are others too.  

Like Matt, my poor DH has had to endure the constant clutter of carseats strewn about the house.  I try to corral most of the ones that I’m not using at the moment in the big closet upstairs in DS1’s bedroom and all the training seats are stored elsewhere.  However, the seats that are “in transition” are sometimes hanging out temporarily in the dining room, or in the playroom, or DS2’s bedroom, or in the basement, or maybe in the shed, or maybe all of the above. 

You will notice that I didn’t say in the garage.  There is a reason that there aren’t any carseats in the garage.  Simply put, I (as well as my precious carseat collection) am banned from the garage. 

For the sake of providing a little background info – here is a typical exchange between DH and I when he gets miffed occaisionally about another carseat showing up at our doorstep.  

Him:  ANOTHER carseat?  Are you kidding me?  We have 16 of them already!

Me:  <thinking to myself: wow, he thinks I only have 16 carseats, that’s funny!> Honey, I know you’re upset but we really do need this seat for reasons that only I and my crazy carseat friends will understand. 

Him:  I can’t take this anymore, you’re out of control, blah, blah, blah….

Me:  Well, tell you what…. let’s make a deal.  I’ll stop buying carseats when you stop buying, er…. what was it that you collect again?  Oh yeah, that’s right…. CARS!

That usually ends the conversation because the truth is that he’s as bad as I am.  Except his “addictions” are bigger, badder and much more expensive than my own.  

The funny thing is once he even tried to hide a car he bought!  I wasn’t too upset because I know I’ve tried to slip a few things past him over the years but c’mon … a car?  I was opening the mail and there was a new insurance card from State Farm for a ’66 Mustang.  But we didn’t own a ’66 Mustang (or so I thought).  He had a ’68 Mustang at the time so I thought there was a mistake.  I called State Farm to alert them to this “mistake” only to be told that this was a different vehicle that my husband had registered.  I’m pretty sure that I called him up and read him the the riot act after that.  He admitted that he bought another car from some guy at work and he had it parked at work.  Anyhow, I got over it after he did some minor restoration work and sold the car for a few grand more than what he paid for it. 

Which leads me to the point of all of this.  The secret to our happy marrige is respect for the interests of the other person and an abundance of tolerance.  He doesn’t share my passion for CPS but he respects what I do and he tolerates it well most of the time.  I love him dearly for that.  He has been a real trooper about taking time off or rearraging his schedule so he can be home with the kids at least some of the days when I have a CPS class to teach.  He’s made trips to Florida for the Kim Conference (twice) to watch the kids while I attend the sessions.  He even bought me 4 plane tickets and a hotel room as a Christmas present to get the whole family to Chicago for the Lifesavers Conference in 2007.  He knew that’s what I wanted more than anything else but he also knew that I couldn’t go unless we all went.  Our little guy just wasn’t ready to be separated from me for several days – and he’s still not.    

On the flip side, I try to appear interested when he’s talking about bead blasting, or carborators or exhaust systems.  And I don’t complain about the frequent deliveries from Summit, Year One, and Rick’s First Generation Camaro when they arrive at our doorstep. 

I won’t ride in any of these “projects” since I nearly killed myself and our first (unborn) child driving a ’73 Mustang back in the fall of 1996.  My days of driving, or even riding around in, old muscle cars are definitely over.  However, I enjoy seeing my DH happily immersed in a new project and I have to admit that he looks hot driving them around when they’re finished!  And let’s face it – if he’s happy doing his thing and I’m happy doing mine then it’s all good.  I don’t need him to share my passion for CPS (I have enough for the both of us) and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want my help in the garage so we just respect each other’s interests and try to stay out of each other’s way.  

 

To ensure that this harmony continues, we have a few simple house rules.  Rule #1- I will stay out of the garage.  #2 – I will keep our kids out of the garage.  #3 – I will keep all the neighborhood kids out of the garage.  #4 – I will not suggest (even jokingly) that we retrofit tether anchors in any of these vehicles.  #5 – I will not badger him repeatedly about replacing the seatbelts in these vehicles even though they’re older than I am. (Don’t worry – the kids never ride in these cars although they would love to – that’s my rule.) 

Once, a few years ago, he complained because I was fiddling with his adjustable head restraint (from outside the vehicle) while he was trying to drive away but I told him “when I stop trying to adjust your head restraint – that’s when you should start to worry!”  He rolled his eyes at me but he hasn’t complained about me doing that since so I guess I made my point.  LOL!

As for the seatbelts that are older than I am – that really does drive me insane.  Since I’m counting on DH not reading this blog entry – here’s a sneak peak at the 3-pt retractable seatbelts that he’s getting for his birthday: http://www.morrisclassicconcepts.com/Billy%20Page%20Three.htm

4 Comments

  1. Jeanum September 5, 2008
  2. Kat September 5, 2008
  3. Hevy September 5, 2008
  4. CPSDarren September 5, 2008