Ten Signs You've Been Married for Eighteen Years

My hubby and I celebrated our 18th anniversary last week. We took a lovely trip to Key West just before Thanksgiving (without the kids!!), but the actual day that marked almost two decades of wedded bliss was quite mundane. It was a Monday, for starters. After a day of work and running kids around, we ended with a mediocre family dinner and all the usual evening quibbles with the kids about homework, bath time, and bedtime. You know what, though? I was totally fine with that very typical, no fanfare, humdrum day because it was spent doing life with the guy who is truly my best friend. 

Over the past 18 years, our lives have changed a lot and, inevitably, our relationship has changed a bit as well - mostly for the better, I think. There are more than a few signs that we've been together for quite a while! 

1. You can ride in the car together for an hour without speaking and it's totally fine. It doesn't feel like "awkward silence" because you've been together so long that you can just enjoy being together without worrying about saying the right things. 
2. When you do talk, you finish each other's sentences. Or, better yet, you bring up a subject at the exact same moment your spouse was just thinking about the same thing.
3. You can discuss each other's bodily functions without being embarrassed. 
4. You know what the other is probably going to order off the menu for dinner before they have even decided themselves. 
5. When either of you asks "Does this make my butt look fat?" you totally expect and receive a completely honest answer.
6. You go to Lowe's, see a self cleaning toilet, say "Hey, you should get me that for our anniversary!" and he totally does and you are totally happy about your new self cleaning toilet anniversary gift. (Not kidding!)
7. You suffer through while he spends Sunday afternoon watching The Matrix or Gladiator again becasue you know that on another day when your favorite movie, One Fine Day or Pretty Woman, is on, he'll skip the football and let you watch it.
8. You frequently (and very unintentionally) find yourselves dressed alike - both wearing khaki pants and a green shirt, for example. In fact, it happens so regularly that you have developed a mutual understanding that the person who dressed second is the one who must change clothes even though the "copying" was accidental.
9. You laugh together a lot more than you cry together. But, crying together is ok, too.
10. You look at each other over a mediocre, semi-home cooked Monday night anniversary dinner while your children laugh and make fart jokes, the dog is howls, the phone rings, and the homework-bedtime-tomorowmoring battles loom and you just smile because there is nowhere else you would rather be and nobody else you would rather be with.

Happy Anniversary, Babe! 😜Thanks for the last 18+ years. I'm looking forward to the next 18+! 💗💗💑