Happy Anniversary, Eva-love

You might wonder what more I could possibly say about my wife, Eva, after sixteen years of marriage and more than a few anniversary, birthday and random because-I-love-you occasion blogs.  It's true, I've said a lot of loving things, because I love her a whole lot.
Longtime readers know the story: I met her at a job interview. She hired me, and at the end of that interview I knew my new boss would be a friend and quite strongly felt she'd be a great deal more than that. Hit by lightning, I was.
What I haven't told you about that interview was that I was dressed in full double-breasted suit and tie. The owners of the market research company dressed that way, and so did various presidents of sundry corporations that often attended focus groups. But for a man applying for a position in the phone room, calling people to try and recruit them for those focus groups...my appearance could hardly have been more incongruous had I sashayed in wearing  nothing at all.
Eva admitted to me, much later, that my choice of attire was the subject of more than a little snickering later, behind closed doors. I honestly didn't know any better; I'd been taught to dress up for interviews, and so I did, and that was that.

Snicker.

It wouldn't be the first time I'd made a complete ass out of myself in front of the woman who became my wife the following year. (It's worth noting that I didn't start dating her until May; the second date was June 11th, on which date we bought a bed together, on the grounds that I had no intention of subjecting my back or hers to that shitty futon ever again; and I moved in with her on the third date. The marriage fourteen months later was a formality.

About making an ass of myself, though...

Oh, I'm good at that. The first movie we watched together was The Matrix. The second -- my choice, again -- was Instinct, with Anthony Hopkins. I'd heard it had gorillas in it. Eva loves gorillas.

I didn't know a bunch of those gorillas are shot and killed. My new love was NOT impressed.  (Thirteen years later I'd take her to see the film version of Les Misérables, in which the father-figure dies at the end...a few short weeks after her father had died. Oh, yeah, THAT was brilliant.)

Over the course of our seventeen-plus year relationship, I've said things I shouldn't have said, done things I shouldn't have done, NOT done any number of things I should have--this is, of course, the long-form definition of "husband". But always, always, ALWAYS, Eva has reacted with consummate grace. We've had three fights in seventeen years. Three.

It's not that emotions don't sometimes run high around here. They do. It's not that I'm a total pushover who will avoid conflict, either, because, well, sometimes the conflict comes running after me. And as previously noted, usually the reason the conflict runs so fleetly is because I've been an unthinking stupid ass.

And what does Eva do? Employ just enough emphasis to ensure I understand my ass-ininity, the peculiar ass-inacious quality of my action. Three times she's had to go full ballistic because my ass and head had fully switched places and my mouth  ears were clogged with shit.

And I'd step back and rethink (eventually). And then I'd come forward again, apologize, explain what I did or didn't do in my own words, and we'd go forward. Eva's not one to let ice form, let alone glaciate, and so whatever-it-was would be...not forgotten, but forgiven...fairly quickly.

Because the person in the relationship is more important than the relationship. We both feel this way, and it (perhaps counterintuitively) has kept our marriage strong and secure. If you're looking out for each other, you tend to stick. And we do that. We look out for each other.

Nobody ever questioned why we married. Not in the first thirteen years, at any rate. Anybody with eyes to see would understand immediately why we had married, after all.

I was VIGOROUSLY questioned about it in year fourteen, when we opened our relationship. The questioner had no idea that we'd been talking about the possibility for as many years as we'd known each other, off and on; that there were a myriad of (extremely personal, of course) reasons why we chose to open then; and that, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but we both learned how to share in kindergarten, if not before.

And so it goes. And so it has been.

Our transition from mono to poly has gone remarkably well, two years and change in, especially considering Eva had never imagined polyamory before she met me. It's incredible, really, because she does this, on the whole, better than I do, and I'm not too bad at it.  An absolute minimum of jealousy -- zero on her end -- and only a few hiccups (none on her end),  the most serious of which was my being unbelievably stupid and committing the cardinal sin of comparison. I tasted shit as I did so and realized right quick that my ass and head had switched places once again.

(Don't compare. It's not about what he gives you that she doesn't...it's only about what you can give and be given while you're with each partner, full stop, end of story.)

The other loves who share our lives have been profoundly respectful of Eva's place in mine and my place in hers. And I believe we have, in turn, been profoundly respectful of the place those other loves have themselves

I couldn't ask for a better person to share my life with. I couldn't ask for a better person to share.

I love you, Eva Breadner. I'd do it all over again without a second thought.

Happy anniversary. We're just getting started, love. But you know that.