Love and Marriage

A few months ago, there was an article on CNN about theories behind how people choose who they marry. It suggests that we end up marrying people like our parents because we find comfort in that which is familiar to us. I always find it really interesting to see who people pair themselves off with and it never ceases to fascinate me which relationships turn out to be successful and which ones fail. Do opposites really attract? Do we seek someone who likes the same things we do? One thing is clear... there is no universal rule for relationships.

For most of us, our parent's marriage is the most detailed case study we will ever have of how that relationship works. Presumably, it can teach us both what to do and what not to do. Considering my parents are divorced, I'm hoping I learned a few pitfalls to avoid: i.e. find someone with the same religion or at least a similar faith background (note to self: Catholicism and Atheism don't mesh well). Some people seem to think that I'm more prone to divorce because I come from a "broken" home, but I think that I'm that much more determined to marry the right person and make it work because I "learned" the lesson from my parents.

In some ways, I am one of the women who end up marrying a man that has a lot in common with her father. PJO and my dad are two of the smartest men I know. They're both easy going and fun, entrepreneur types. They're both the youngest child of three. But whereas my dad completely rejects tradition, is not a "family man" and shows little-to-no emotion, PJO is the opposite. He comes from a big, traditional Italian family where family is THE MOST important thing. He is emotional and not very shy about showing his feelings. And I can't help but think that I self-selected these traits for the man I would marry. Somewhere between my parents divorcing and getting married myself, I identified my dad's independence and refusal to be tied into anything traditional or expected of him as the major source of conflict in his marriage to my mom.

Personally, I didn't think too philosophically or abstractly about whether I was making the right choice in marrying PJO. I didn't take into account the ways in which he was similar to and different from my father. I didn't plan out the dynamic of our relationship so that we wouldn't encounter the problems that my parents did. But I had no doubts about whether he was right for me. I knew with absolute certainty that we would be blissfully happy together. All I cared about was that we had a solid foundation of compatibility and I didn't want to live my life without him.

It's exciting to think that we have this clean slate and can make our marriage as strong and loving as we want. PJO and I have agreed that we want to always strive to put our marriage first in our family. We think it's really important in raising our child(ren) to show them how a successful marriage operates... not just for teaching them how to select a spouse and act when they get married one day, but also for teaching them the role that they play in the family unit. (Some people say the behavioral problems with kids today are due to their needs always coming before everything else, including the well-being of the parents and their marriage... I emphatically agree). I can't imagine anything better to give my kids than a loving and stable home and family.

In some ways, PJO and I are a lot alike: we are both nerdy and pretty straight-edge. We are rather homebody-ish (having friends over for dinner parties is like our ideal social activity). We love traveling, we love being with friends and family. We love eating and drinking and laughing.
In other ways, we couldn't be more opposite. He's an introvert, I'm a total extrovert. He likes sci-fi and action, I like comedy and drama. I like country, classic rock and pop music, he likes alternative rock. He's a saver, I'm a spender. He's emotional, I'm not. He likes more of the indoor activities, I like more outdoor stuff. He likes freedom and doing things his own way, I like structure and following rules. I'm a (borderline ?) OCD neat freak and he...isn't.
We have become a little more like each other and we compromise on the things we need to, but I think the differences individually make us more interesting as a couple. That's one thing to say for marrying young...you're still growing and changing as an individual, but if you pick the right person, you can both grow and change in the same direction.
We also fall more in love with each other as time goes on. I think this song sums it up pretty well.

Want to know more? I loved LL's answers to this meme, so I copied it!

1. What are your middle names?
Joseph and Ellen. Both family names.

2. How long have you been together?
Depends on when you start counting... I guess since September '04 (when we officially started dating).


3. How long did you know each other before you started dating?
10 months. We met on PJO's 23rd birthday. At the college bar. Both of us were wasted. We did the college hook up thing for a month or so (although he had already graduated), and then I went to study abroad in Spain, followed by living in CA for the summer. We started dating a few weeks after I got back to NY (September 2004).

4. Who asked whom out?
PJO asked me out. But the first time he did, it wasn't for a real date. I went to his place and we watched a movie. That was totally just a pretense for hooking up.

5. How old are each of you?
I just turned 26, he'll be 29 in November.


6. Whose siblings do you see the most?
It's a pretty equal split. We live closer to my brothers, but don't see them all that often, and only for a day at a time. When we visit PJO's family, we spend the whole trip with his brother and sister.


7. Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Well, the most stressful time of our relationship was August 2005. We were going to move in together at the end of the month, so I temporarily moved into his apartment. A dirty, 5th floor walk-up with no A/C in harlem. In NYC. In August. All of our belongings were crammed into a 10' x 13' room. Like all mature adults, we coped by drinking. I recall one Tuesday night where we were throwing back tequila shots after work. We had several fights that month.


8. Did you go to the same school?
Well, kind of. We both went to Columbia for undergrad, but I was in the College and he was in the Engineering school. We dated my senior year, but he was back in school getting his Masters that year.
Before college, PJO went to an all-boys Catholic jock school, with only 100 kids in his graduating class. I was one of about 650 graduating seniors from my public school.

9. Are you from the same home town?
Not even close. I grew up in Orange County, CA. He grew up in Bergen County, NJ.


10. Who is smarter?
I think he is. Luckily, we study different things so we don't have to actually think about it. I was a political science major and he was the math/science/computer guy.

11. Who is the most sensitive?
Him. He still yells at me for not crying when he proposed or when we got married. Hey, I also didn't cry when Timmy was born.

12. Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Hmmm. We eat out a fair amount. We love Wahoos fish tacos. In-n-out and Islands are my two favorites. Fritto Misto is my favorite Italian place nearby. We also order pizza way too often.

13. Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
We went on a cruise for our honeymoon to Puerto Rico, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, Tortola and St. Thomas. We also flew from NJ to Hawaii last summer.

14. Who has the craziest exes?
I don't really have any. Therefore, PJO's. Also, even if I did have exes, it would still be PJO.


15. Who has the worst temper?
Neither. We don't work like that. I'm totally passive aggressive. He doesn't really get worked up about anything.


16. Who does the cooking?
Both. Depends on who is in the mood to cook, who has time and who gets around to it first. All else being equal, he is better at preparing meat and entrees. I'm better at side dishes/veggies and BAKING.


17. Who is the neat-freak?
Me. I may have mentioned it before, but I'm a little OCD. He's forced me to relax a little bit. Now I don't make the bed every day and my clothes are sometimes strewn across the floor in our room.
I can't stand the way anyone else washes dishes or loads the dishwasher, so I do that. He is obsessive about how is clothes are folded (he worked at the Gap in high school) and his computer.

18. Who is more stubborn?
Me. I'm an aries...I was just born that way. PJO sometimes puts up a valiant effort, but I usually win.

19. Who hogs the bed?
He would say I do. I say the cats do. This is saying something considering we have a California King bed and our cats weigh about 10 pounds each. They just have a knack for finding the spot exactly in the middle of where we sleep.

20. Who wakes up earlier?
This implies we go to bed. It all depends... I get up with Timmy, so right now it's usually me. But before Timmy, it was often him because he used to go for bike rides down to Manhattan Beach, leaving our apartment at 5:30am. When he rowed (our first year in LA) he sometimes would get up at 4:45am!

21. Where was your first date?
Our first date-date (in 2004) was to the most amazing Italian restaurant in the West Village called Vittorio's and then dessert at Rocco's pastry on Bleecker. He was the perfect gentleman and picked me up at my place even though we then took the subway to dinner.


22. Who is more jealous?
Him. Nothing really phases me, but he is a pretty possessive type. I'm not sure that he actually ever gets jealous anymore, but he is definitely more prone to it than me.

23. How long did it take to get serious?
Not long. We started dating in September 2004, we moved in together in August 2005. Then we got engaged in September 2006.

24. Who eats more?
Him. Although he doesn't always have room for dessert. I seem to have a separate compartment in my stomach for that.

25. Who does the laundry?
He does his clothes, and I usually do everything else. I kind of love doing laundry. I also am particular about how my clothes are done because I let a lot of stuff air dry (when you're as tall as me and have arms as long as I do, you can't afford to have things shrink in the dryer). Therefore, I don't think I would trust anyone else to ever do my laundry.

26. Who's better with the computer?
Ha. He is. He majored in Computer Science and then got his masters in it. He also built his computer. I know nothing beyond the features I use everyday.

27. Who drives when you are together?
He does. I think it's a man thing. The only times I have driven when he is in the car are 1) when he was so severely hungover that he could do nothing but curl up in the passenger seat and 2) on the rare occasion that I know the area better than he does.