Happy little habits

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This fall, my husband and I will celebrate our fifteenth anniversary.  We’ve been together through sickness and health, good times and bad, and even survived extended road trips with all three kids fighting in the backseat.  There is no one else I would rather spend my life with, and am thankful for every day he puts up with my weirdness.
But just recently I think we’ve gotten more comfortable with each other because within the last month I have found out about a couple of my quirky habits of which I was completely unaware.
“Do you realize you always eat ice cream that way?” he asked at a restaurant while I was downing my delight from the ice cream sundae bar.  Not sure what he was talking about, I offered up a questioning look and he and the children all demonstrated.  “You put the spoon in your mouth and then you turn it upside down.  Every single time.”
“No I don’t!” I argued, but while enjoying seconds of ice cream I noticed he was exactly right.  I flip the spoon over in my mouth.  I am a freak and instant panic set in—here I was, for the last fifteen years thinking that I was a model of perfection without any annoying habits to irritate my family.  Apparently I was wrong.
The devastation continued not long after.  “Do you realize that every time you go to the bathroom you blow your nose?”
“No I don’t!”
“Yes, you do.  I hear you walk in, shut the door, and you blow your nose.”
After making myself aware of it, I found out it was absolutely true.  A complete robotic routine I didn’t even know I was doing.  Just like the flip of the spoon.  How many other instinctive behaviors have I been putting him through for all these years?  How could he not go stark raving mad watching me eat ice cream and listening to me honking my nose?  How could he stay with me through all of this madness?!?
Wondering and watching every step I took and action I did, I woke up early, made coffee, and poured it for my kindhearted and patient husband.  He came downstairs and grabbed his coffee and commenced his routine of drinking it with the loudest sip I have yet to hear in my entire life.  Even when I attempt to mock him I am not able to make so loud a sip.  I dare say that if I hooked up a vacuum hose to the rim of a coffee cup, it may not rival it.
But I say nothing (and neither will you, dear readers!) because as much as it drives me crazy, I know that these little habits make happy marriages.  I’m sure of it.  We’ve got fifteen years under our belt to prove it.


Originally written 7/20/14 

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