We didn’t understand each other much at the start. It caused a lot of arguments. We would think entirely differently about the same situations – approach it from different angles altogether. What we learned in our marriage preparation course we took early this year was that all this behavior is learned from your family and your environment you are brought up in.

Den is stubborn, headstrong and not afraid of confrontation; I’m easygoing and will willingly fall to pieces if anyone raises their voice to me… Den is incredibly good with money and even in the dark days when his business wasn’t earning much, he managed to save responsibly; no matter how much I earn, I never seem to have any and I have no idea where it goes! Den likes practical things (like giving his sister a set of car tyres for her birthday) where I’m into romance, fluff and prettiness (and prefer gifts like jewelry or fancy dinners)…

And so it goes on. Neither is wrong, neither is right, both have their advantages… and their drawbacks.

And slowly, we are learning from each other and also how to deal with each other. I tend to think if we were too similar, we wouldn’t be able to grow the way we both have. Having two completely different points of view to almost everything in life makes for interesting conversations! Of course, it takes effort to strike the balance and keep it there… but when we manage it well, it’s a beautiful thing.

And then there’s the rest of it.

Superficial things aside, when it comes right down to values, we are almost identical. We both want the same things; we are both prepared to fight for the same things. Family, happiness, stability, friendship and most of all, our marriage, are the things we are committed to wholeheartedly.

Most relationship studies show that opposites don’t really attract as much as similarities in partners. We, as humans, are much more attracted to someone who reminds us of… us.

What about you and your sweetie? Are you similar to each other? Or did opposites attract? Do you share values and morals or have you had to negotiate a special ethics code that works for both of you?

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Emma believes that when I am sick I suffer from Man Cold Syndrome… WTF?

Friday, I busted my leg in judo class. I don’t think it’s broken, but it’s not a happy leg – there is definitely damage to the medial ligament of the knee and something funky is going on at the lateral side of my ankle. There is no walking, motorbike riding, car driving or BJJ for sometime – basically no fun to be had for a while.

When Emma heard the news, she looked stricken. I could practically hear what was going on in her head: “Oh God, get me out of here… it’s a Man Cold!”

Shame on you Emma… am I really that demanding???

Oi!!! Where is that double-mocha-soy-chai-frappucino in a pink mug that I asked for from you like 20 minutes ago? …Sheesh!

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I’m not actually sure if we will take a holiday this summer. It’s been a big year – we had the wedding and honeymoon, and already took a “vacation” to Palm Cove for a week… that one’s kind of scarred me from wanting to holiday again too quickly!

Den has had a few weeks away already on his own (the snow just last week), I took a weekend in Sydney with friends…

Also, with the general business outlook in Australia (everywhere?) being dismal and all it’s not like we want to be spending piles of money again on a week away. Den would happily camp for a week in a tent at a caravan park. I’m… not so gung-ho on that. Like, I’ll do it and probably have fun but it wouldn’t be my first choice. I was in the Girl Guides, I’ve been there and done that plenty in my time and frankly… meh. Give me a luxury hotel and a pool and room service anyday (it doesn’t help that I’ve been spoiled by working with some of the most amazing hotels in the world)!

Which brings me to holiday styles…

What happens when you and your partner have different ideas of what a great holiday is? You like the snow and they like the beach? You like five star hotels and they prefer a tent? You want a romantic trip for two and they want to go with a huge group of friends? You love the idea of relaxing and doing jack all, they want to see everything there is to see and do everything there is to do…. They want to go with their (or worse – your!) family and spend a week somewhere together, you’d rather stick nails in your eye… Do you compromise, alternate or just don’t holiday together? Or at all?

And what’s the best/worst holiday you’ve been on with a partner?

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I love Emma more than anything in the world – but time apart does wonders for the soul!

I’ve just come back from 7 days in the snow… with friends, mostly couples, but there was no Emma. One of the partners asked where she was – I replied with “we’re spending some time apart.”

Ok, so I guess it could be misleading – a comment like that may suggest something is wrong in our relationship also not wearing my wedding ring raised questions.

I love spending time away from Emma – it’s such a refreshing feeling to go away for a week and miss her! The snow trip was the 3rd time this year that I’ve taken a week off without Emma. Most people don’t get it – especially when the trip is dominated by couples. Each trip is littered with questions about why she is not there, there MUST be something wrong – it’s just not the case.

Emma and I are independent people; we love spending time together and also enjoy spending time on our own. These days we hardly socialise together. Come the weekend she will go out and visit her friends as I visit mine. We often come together for dinner and then may separate again afterwards when going out. Usually late at night we may bring the groups together or somehow meet up and finish off the night with each.

Of course, we do go out together if requested, and she always gets priority… but there is no obligation to do everything together in our relationship. Hmmm, with the reactions of some people, I wonder if they think what we do is this wrong? Should we be spending more time together?

How do you and your partner roll? Do you do everything together or do you like to spend some time apart?

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Most couples spend that 2-2.5 hours a day together that we talked about last week. Den and I are fortunate that these days, we pretty much live in each other’s pockets. Working together, living together, sometimes socializing together… it’s nice to be away from each other for awhile in between to allow yourself to regroup. Too much time together, I think, and we start to take each other for granted. Lose a bit of the spark. We make an effort to get that spark back with our weekly date nights, but there’s nothing like a good, solid week of apartness to give you back a bit of ardor toward your partner. We even go so far as to not really talk every day on the phone or contact each other too much so that we can really miss each other’s company. And at the end of an extended period of time apart, there’s nothing so sweet as feeling really excited (tummy-butterfly excited!) to see them, or that first hug and kiss when you’re finally reunited.

I know couples, like us, that quite happily will spend time apart, missing their partner all the while. I know couples that refuse to spend more than one or two nights apart from each other, cutting weekends away short to get back to their lovers… couples that live, work, socialize and practically breathe together and still won’t spend time apart and couples that are both so busy that they barely see each other, even for date night.

What about you? Do you like missing your partner sometimes, or do you prefer to hold tight and close? Does it change when you have children? What would be your ideal schedule with your partner?

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Which is fine. Den and I usually spend so much time in each other’s company that we tend to socialize completely separately anyway… living, working AND hanging out together 24/7 would get a bit much anyway. Too much of a good thing and all that!

But it got me thinking … how much time do you people out there get with your sweetie? In between busy careers and social lives, how often do you get to see your lover? Do you have date night regularly to ensure quality time once a week? Do you pass like ships in the night on completely different schedules? Do you socialize in the same circles? Do you live in each other’s pockets and love it?

Love to hear what’s going out there in relationship land. Comment here and let us know!

Update: In the interest of finding out what is “normal” I stumbled across this interesting information

The Office for National Statistics finds that on average we spend two to two-and-a-half hours a day together, including weekends.

“And what do we do when we’re alone with our loved ones? Watch TV (one third of all the time spent together), eat (30 minutes) and do housework together (24 minutes). Whoopee. Married people spend half an hour more together than people who cohabit. Retired couples spend only four hours a day together. Are they avoiding each other?”

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The funny thing is, I know where (mostly) everything is. My theory is that my chaos-ridden filing system must mimic my scattered brain pattern somehow, because it all makes sense to me. ‘Intuitive filing’ it’s called – and, as Time Magazine recently said “Messy is the New Neat”

Unfortunately for Den, he has to share an office with me. His side of the office features papers stacked neatly, one notebook placed at 90-degree angle to the right of his keyboard, a few key documents that he may need placed to the left and that’s it. The rest of his things are kept in a humungous filing cabinet and a series of in-trays… filed neatly like soldiers standing in a row, alphabetically, probably color-coded (I’m scared to look in there) and so forth and so on.

He tries to help organize me, which is sweet (and of course, entirely selfishly motivated) but it seems to backfire everytime. He once (some months back) moved a stack of papers off my desk and onto the carpet in an effort to get me to sort them out. The result is that we now have two piles of paperwork – one on the floor and one on my desk.

Sometimes, I do get the tidying urge. This usually happens when I have the house to myself, I can turn up the girly pop music (Read: Britney) that I am otherwise embarrassed to play and dance around the house sorting and organizing things until they are spotless. It lasts all of a week before usual anarchy resumes (or in the case of this past weekend, it lasted all of 48 hours.)

I don’t think I’ll ever change. I don’t think I could. Once, at a former job, they stupidly gave me my own office. An entire room with gleaming, available surfaces on which I could strew papers, magazines, advertising proofs, brochures and whatnot. Heaven!

I feel sterile and strange if my desk is clean. And what would life be if I couldn’t occasionally stumble across something I’d long-forgotten every now and then? It’s a lovely surprise to find something you didn’t even remember you had!

I don’t know at what point this may cause horrible, irreparable problems in my marriage. As you, dear readers, know this isn’t our only difference, I’m also a Night Owl while he’s a Morning Lark and while he’s a health freak, I’m lukewarm on the whole exercise thing.

Can neat freaks and mess-makers get along harmoniously? Are you messy? Are you and your sweetie both messy? (Lordy… I can only imagine that situation…) Are you both organizational Nazis? Or, like us, are you complete opposites and find yourselves coming to blows over the lump of clothes parked in the corner of the bedroom, the papers on the coffee table and the stack of back-issue magazines in the bathroom?

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So…. Let’s see… hmmm…happy thoughts… happy thoughts….

Let me tell you about the way Den proposed to me, because it’s one of the most romantic and lovely stories I have for you.

Everyone knew he was going to propose before I did. And I mean everyone. Unbeknownst to me, Denis had already gone to see my mother to ask for her blessing to marry me. He turned up one night sans Emma, which was weird enough in itself, and, as I’m told, nervously fumbled his way through the formalities and managed to blurt out the question and divulged to her how he was planning on proposing.My mother immediately went about the business of giving him a good kick up the butt on setting the date to do it… apparently, he’d been “thinking” about it for about 4 months beforehand.

So, in the meantime we have my birthday party at which all my closest friends were let in on the secret while I was blithely downing champagne and being none the wiser… they all did such a good job of hiding it from me. I jetted off to Thailand for business and the preparations began.

Denis booked me in for what I assumed was one of our regular date nights. He was going to pick me up early from my apartment and we were going on a picnic! Lovely! He arrived to pick me up a little earlier than I would have liked for a Saturday (not a morning person) and instantly made the astute assessment that I was in dire need of coffee. He drove us to the Brighton Baths and we had a latte on the deck out the back, overlooking the sea baths and the ocean. It was a gorgeous, mild March day. Suitably caffeinated, I began to warm up and become human.

Once back in the car, Denis handed me a blindfold and told me to put it on. I did, but not without the requisite girly giggling and ducking down in the car so people couldn’t see me… Den tried to assure me that no one was looking, but I was squirmy and uncomfortable anyway! We drove for about 40 minutes before I felt the car pull up.

Denis ran around the car getting a huge picnic blanket out of the boot and whatnot. I was still blindfolded and clueless (yup… still no inkling in the slightest of what was about to happen!)
He led me down a little path and stood me by myself while he fussed around… then told me to take the blindfold off. When I did, I was standing in a small clearing between trees, with no one else in sight. A small creek ran around the clearing and the sunshine was streaming through the trees. Denis was on one knee in front of me looking petrified and holding up to me the biggest, most gaudy plastic toy ring that I’ve ever seen. I still had no idea what was happening!

I barely remember what he said because all I could hear was a rush of blood in my ears and a little voice in my head going: This is it! This is the only time this is going to happen! Is he serious? Is this a joke? This is it! Will you just listen already because you’re missing the most romantic moment of your life! Shut up! Focus… oh! Say something! He’s waiting for you to say something! So I gathered my wits about me and blurted out: “Are you serious?!”

Poor Den looked like he might pass out any second… every time I think of the moment, all I remember is naked fear in his eyes… it was gorgeous, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so vulnerable. He told me that yes, he was in fact serious and my mouth took over before I could think anymore.

Of course I said yes.

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Well, mostly I hate it. You could call it a like-hate relationship, I suppose. My newfound okayness with Pilates makes for a Very Pleased Husband. Den is somewhat of a gym junkie. He’s there 5 days a week, lifting his weights and flexing his biceps and whatever else it is men do when they go to the gym (?). What’s more, he’s out of bed at 7am every morning to get there, so you know he’s super keen about it. Just to rub in the fact that he’s super-active while I’m super-NOT, the man also does Jiu Jitsu 3 days a week just for kicks. And when he’s really seriously trying, there’s an hour or so of cardio most days too. I’m tired just freakin’ thinking about it!

When Denis and I first met, I was dancing (as in, hip hop, jazz, funk, ballet dancing… Not. A. Stripper.) Hardcore dancing. Hours and hours every week of classes. I was pretty fit and flexible (See Exhibit A to your right) but under no circumstances was I, or have I ever been a cardio person. In fact, Den has very sweetly already documented on this blog that when I run, I look like Elaine from Seinfeld dancing. It’s probably true. (At least I dance better than her, right?)

But then I stopped dancing. And nothing else could hold my interest… yoga? Yeah, sometimes. But mostly? Yawn. Treadmill? I had one trick where I would go when America’s Next Top Model was on so I could jog for an hour and still be entertained. Power-Boxing? Forget it, I passed out twice after those classes (lightweight). My efforts were sporadic at best, which frustrated my loving husband no end.
The acupuncture-masseuse-health-freak guy in him is worried about my health. Specifically, my heart and my lungs and my organs. Which is lovely of him because, frankly, someone has to be worried about them.

So I decided to give Pilates a go. I’m there regularly 2-3 times a week now (it will be always three times a week once my muscles stop screaming at me for mercy on my off-days!) and enjoying it! It’s reminiscent of dance training… my body somewhat remembers how to get into those poses. I feel lighter afterwards, I walk taller, my breathing is free and easy…

I proudly announced to Den that I have found my thing (I think)… and he scoffed!

“Pilates? C’mon baby, you can do better than that. Do something harder!”

Something harder? Than Pilates?

I tried to tell him “It’s not some fluffy yoga class – we don’t sit around meditating and chanting for an hour… it’s difficult!”

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head, clearly unconvinced…

…Until last week when he came home and announced sheepishly that his Jiu Jitsu instructor had also taken up Pilates and swears that it’s “Harder than Jiu Jitsu.”

Take THAT, you health freak!

Now the only question is; when’s Den gonna man up and come to a Pilates class with me?

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1. The Drum Kit
I hear ancient stories of the glory days of Den’s drumming career. I’ve seen photographic evidence of long, bleached rocker hair and I even have the privilege of seeing his beloved drum kit in the corner of the lounge in our apartment (which… did I mention it’s a small apartment? An apartment that doesn’t have the luxury of HAVING A MASSIVE DRUM KIT SITTING IN THE CORNER OF IT?) but never, never, never, ever have I seen him play it. If it wasn’t for Peter at I Heart Guitar, I’d even think that the whole “I’m a Drummer” thing was set up just to impress chicks… but actually, I hear my husband is really talented… I’d love to hear him play! (What gal doesn’t love a rockstar?) and hell, if he DID play it, I’d happily keep it around. Right now, though? It’s just a pain in the ass to dust around… and really, I don’t wish it to the dump, just into storage…

I’m going to get crucified for suggesting this to you, Internet… he’s verrry touchy about the drum kit. I even moved the tom tom (? I think it was the tom tom) from the right side of the kit to the left side, so it would stop BLOCKING THE WALKWAY TO THE KITCHEN and we had to have a summit about that! because “That’s not where it goes!”…

2. The Hideous Painting
We have this painting hanging on our wall that was bought B.E. (Before Emma) and it scares every single child that sets foot in our apartment. Our neighbours’ adorable 1-year-old turns to look at it every 5 seconds when he’s here to make sure it isn’t sneaking up to murder him! (Den maintains that he’s just admiring it, but I see fear in his eyes…).

That’s all. Just two things. I am more than happy for everything else to stay… and I already know that Den would dearly love to throw out a) About half to two-thirds of the cosmetics in our bathroom and b) Our bed.

Now, I can assure you this post is going to cause my husband conniptions (in fact, he’s probably already fitting on the floor or yelling at me as you read this), but it’s all in good spirit. And I just know that you, dear readers, have things of your partner’s that you would love to see banished! But, because you love them (BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, DENIS) you let them stay…

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