State of the Union

I said a lot on my last anniversary about my love for my wife and the lives we have built so far and continue to build. We're six years into our formal marriage, now (we pretty much considered ourselves married at the end of the third date), still happy in that boring sort of way that nobody wants to hear about. Good marriages make for sleep-inducing reading. People want to know when the dishes start flying and the screams of rage echo for hours. The dialogue alone is worth the price of admission: lots of profanity, spiked with oh-so-creative insults designed to find every button on your spouse and just hammer away.
There's none of that in our marriage. We've had arguments, sure--who hasn't? Aside from the desire to reach consensus as soon as possible (I really hate confrontations), there's nothing more conducive to settling an argument than a dog who cringes if you start to so much as raise your voice. It's enough to make me wonder just what sort of home our Tux spent his formative months in.
Some comedian or other says that when you ask men about their marriages, they always say 'it's great' in a tone of voice and with a look that suggests somebody's sticking a stopsign up their asses. The jokes about marriage abound--matrimony and airplanes, the great inexhaustible staples of the comic repetoire. I've found that, while there's lots of funny stuff in our relationship--I make it a point to elicit a giggle out of my wife every day, and she does the same--there's nothing funny about our relationship. We both take it seriously.

Eva tended to date the 'bad boys' and some of the experiences she's had over the years....yeesh.
I used to be concerned whenever a badass type showed up, even on television. They invariably had muscles in places I don't even have places, and they walked with a swagger that (to me) signalled 'I'm raping your wife right now. And she's lovin' it.' My concern would be magnified if Eva showed any sort of interest--which, being human, she would do.
I married you, Eva would tell me, with more than a little exasperation in her voice. Yeah, I'd say, but why? Why marry somebody so different from what seems to be your ideal? Which would provoke an, ahem, 'discussion'.
It took longer than I'd like to admit to jettison that little piece of insecurity, to throw out my last remaining vestige of jealousy. She did marry me, not Mr. "Muscles" Neanderthal. And having a little mental movie of somebody in no way means you want to star in it. (Well, maybe you do, but you certainly won't go so far as Central Casting. Not when you value your relationship as highly as we do.)
Funny, that. Back in the day, long before I met Eva, I toyed with the idea of polyamory--loving more than one person at once. My parents saw it as toying, anyway: in the manner of most twentysomethings I was dead earnest about it. I made every effort to be as unpossessive as possible in relationships, recognizing that possessiveness and love are opposite.
Needless to say, that toy broke right quickly. I still think of polyamory as an ideal state for humanity in general--something that might work if the right people came along--but I know now I'm not cut out for it. However, the one trait I still retain from that time in my life is a lack of jealousy. It bewilders Eva a smidgen that I'm so blithely uncaring if, for example, somebody makes a pass at her. Truth be told, I'm unlikely to even notice it, but even if I did, it wouldn't bother me. Actually, it would just confirm to me that there was somebody else in the world who recognized a beautiful woman. That's a good thing, no?

Six years. I just read in Macleans this week that most couples don't have more than half an hour's meaningful conversation in a week. We're not most people--pretty much everything we say to each other has meaning, and we both know it.
The same article suggested that in this era when extended families are very rare, and many people keep whatever family they have at arm's length or further, marriage has become a catch-all. We expect our partners to fulfill every role there is: parent figure, best friend, confidant, passionate lover. More cause for reflection: I certainly don't expect any of that from my wife, but it just seems to happen anyway. Can't think why, except to suggest that we're a lot alike in many ways, and where we aren't we complement each other.

At any rate, familiarity breeds content around here. I can say with a smile on my face--one that in no way suggests the presence of a stopsign in my rectal region--that my marriage is wonderful.