Marriage should be illegal...

"Marriage should be illegal" those words were said to me recently by one of my newly wedded children.

Then my dear one said " I have never wanted to choke someone til their eyeballs popped out of their head up so much in my whole life."

Yep..that's married life.

Those first couple years when you are with someone are filled with passion..and passion takes lots of forms... for example... wanting to choke someone til their eyeballs pop out is one form.

Not that I would not know anything about that sort of thing...Kim and I have always been level headed and rational.

Which is why the kids and their friends used to rate our fights in terms of most interesting..most exciting..most entertaining.

The one that comes up most often is the one where I was so angry that I picked up my daughters Big Wheel ,threw it and hit the hood of his van as he drove off. Which is made all the more impressive by the fact that I was a pretty good distance from the vehicle.

I also tried to run him over with my car.

He threw a cup so hard against the kitchen wall it left a hole...

Passion.

Eventually though you get to the point where you start to understand your partner..the things they will say..their reactions to life events..what torks the heck out of them.

Now most of the time those are the lessons that we can use to make life calmer, easier and productive...

Except for when we don't.

Except for those days when we just really want to make a point.

In the "old days" I would decide to make my always salient point by getting up earlier than the husband and playing music that he hated ...loudly.

The Indigo girls and Melissa Ethridge being the two best battle cries I could mount.

It was the equivalent of poking a hornets nest...or waving a red flag at a bull...or bombing a neighboring country.

It got things going.

Which we need to do sometimes in a marriage.

However, I have found these past many months that living apart from your love has its advantages when you are so sick of that person that you stare at them wondering" WTF was I thinking when I married you?? Why did I even date you?? For the love of God why did I date you a second time?"

Yes, If you want to have a "time out" two houses can be advantageous.

Most of us can't afford that...trust me it is not an economically good option.

Its a good option if one of you is a hobo...no offense to the Hobos of the world.

I can make my case about my husbands"hobo" ways with this story.

I have been doing lots and I mean lots of cleaning to make the move back into the house.

Last Saturday i decide I am going to clean the kitchen sink. I scrub and scrub for about 45 minutes(really) and finally decide enough for now..it is pretty good.

The husband comes home awhile later and he walks in the kitchen..looks at the sink..turns away..does a couple things comes back to the kitchen looks at the sink again and says nothing..third time he is back again this time he peers into the sink and has this funny look on his face..he turns and looks at me and says" Di, did you paint the sink white?"

'I just sigh and shake my head and say " no Kim..that's what it is supposed to look like."

I rest my case.

I married one of the few men in the world who could make me appear neat.

See kids ...marriage is like that.

It changes you. You both grow..learn give and take..embrace new facets of your personality.

So what to do...if you are going to make it as a couple.., and you can't afford separate homes?

I would suggest the following...First, have a strong throwing arm... Second,figure out what really makes them mad and use that information wisely...And third, but most importantly,develop a killer sense of humor so you can tell the story without actually choking their eyeballs out of their head...

and of course it is all about the story.