Two can be 'a Family'

After yesterday's post I had an old high school friend of Chris's (who I've never met but have loved getting to know through facebook, I just wish it had been under happier circumstances) message me to say that my blog had her thinking about what it means to have a successful relationship 'as you and Chris clearly did'.

The first thought that came to my mind was 'there is a big difference between successful and perfect'. Now I'm not going to go all John Gray on you all because I have never read Men are from Mars. In fact I've never, ever read any book on relationships. Before I met Chris I never read any books on being single, or finding a man. I did read snippets of 'He's Just Not that Into You' once when I was in the book store because I'd seen the Sex and the City episode.

So I can't tell you if men really are from Mars and women from Venus, I have no idea of 'The Rules' and I figured that for at least some of the time Chris was 'Into Me'.

I don't want this blog to be an illusion. I don't want people to find romanticism in my grief for things that weren't there. We weren't often a hand-holding couple, but we said "I love you" several times a day. We didn't always do everything together, but not a day went by without a kiss. I would be furious that he would clean the kitchen once a month and thought he deserved a medal, he refused to let me do the laundry because I didn't 'do it right'. But we always high-fived each other after an intimate night and told each other how awesome we were.

We knew and loved each other through pimples, warts, addictions, birth marks, cellulite and all.

But mostly we were 'family'. We stuck with each other no matter what. Both of us did things at times that were so terrible, the other one of us could have easily walked. But we never did because we knew we were meant to be together. We fought well because we had the same goal - to make SURE we could work it out.

That is why I think we were 'successful'. And I don't know or care if the self-help gurus agree or not.