To be Married or Not to be Married

One would think that after almost 20 years of marriage that two normally mature adults would be able to resolve their problems. Yeah, right. Not gonna happen. I married my hubby because he was my Mr Perfect. He was going to be a wonderful provider, awesome father, amazing lover and so forth. I was right on almost all counts. I am one of the lucky few women to get it right. My hubby married me because ………. hell I don’t know why!!! But 20 years later (next month in fact we will celebrate this with him working and me barefoot in my pj’s cooking dinner) we are still fighting in love.
The topic for today’s rambling came about from a very serious note. Hubby has been working 14 to 18 hours a day every day for the past 8 weeks. Stressed to the hilt. I’ve been on my usual rollercoaster ride of all kinds of work and feeling grossly unappreciated. We had our usual 10 minute fight which ended with him being right and me being …. of course I am always right and 6 days of no speaks. That is, until Sunday night when, by 1am (Monday morning), I was still lying awake waiting for him to come home. Suddenly this horrific thought came to mind – “What if he falls asleep behind the wheel and does not come home?” OMG, that was more than I could bear. At that point I simply asked God to bring him home safely. When I heard the gate make it’s wako sounds I almost fainted. The relief was so mind blowing I almost burst into tear. Yes, I did thank God, quite literally.
It was at that point I realised, what the heck are we doing?
Are we moving in the same direction?
What are OUR dreams and goals?
Are they aligned or out of sync?
I realised that we are both working like mad to make ends meet, make sure the children's needs are met, make  sure that extended family’s needs are met – but what about our needs?
Now is the time for hubby and I to stop, put our needs, goals and dreams on paper. If we’re in sync then lets work together to achieve them. Like any business (and perhaps marriage should be viewed as a business – take a minute to see the similarities), you need a plan, the plan needs to be agreed upon by all parties concerned and then the plan needs to be set in motion. Don’t forget, just like any business plan, this plan needs to be reviewed and adjusted every few years.
This, my friends, is my solutions to making a marriage work. I will be doing this with my hubby as I envisage us as Ouma and Oupa sitting op die stoep. Whether that stoep is battered and old like us or elegant with a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean matters not for we will be doing it together.