My Marriage Vows if I knew then what I know now

If I knew then what I know now, my marriage vows would’ve went a little something like this:

I take you to be my Clyde and I your Bonnie--partners in crime, willing accomplices. We will have alibis from this day forward.

I expect you to love me when I’m on top of the world and in the darkest cave, through PMS, drunken stupors, and tender moments.

I need you to accept the fact that I’m probably never going to replace the toilet paper, and the empty cardboard ring will be on the holder more times that you would like, as well as the empty ice trays in the freezer.

I need you to love me through three pregnancies, one that will surprise us, but nonetheless be the best gift God ever gave us, and one miscarriage that will weigh heavy on my heart.

I need you to be there for me 10 years from now, when I decide that I need to get my degree because I want to be somebody that my kids will be proud of. It won’t be easy, I will neglect the housework and be a stressed, grumpy woman, but you can do it. I know you can.

I need you to make me laugh at the end of the day, because even funny people get down and out sometimes.

I need you to have a really strong back so you will be able to keep up with my Gemini urges to have the furniture moved around every other week.

I need you to understand that you will probably never understand me. I’m a complex creature. The good news is that you don’t really have to. Just accepting that I’m the furthest thing from perfect, and loving me despite it is good enough for me.

In exchange, I will love you through five moves, lay off slips and shift work.

I will try to accept the fact that you will hate my dogs (even though I will know you really don’t mean it).

I will accept that you do not like to take the trash out anymore than I like to replace the toilet paper.

I will give in to the big screen tv, even though I think it’s entirely too big, the boat, and most any other “man toys“ that you must have.

I will give you grey hair, and then cause you to lose your hair, and my final punch will be giving you high blood pressure. (I apologize in advance.)

I will look at you with our children and know that they are the luckiest kids on earth to have you as a father.

You will coach basketball and soccer and probably underwater basket-weaving if your little girl asked you to.

We will bicker at one another and say things we don’t mean.

We will also laugh together and say things we do mean.

We will go to bed mad once in a while--and maybe I’ll even throw you a blanket for your stay on the couch.

You will lose your spontaneity and impulsiveness and I will drive you insane trying to recapture it (hence the high blood pressure.)

We will figure out that raising three children is not a cakewalk.

We will be broke most of the time (all of the time).

We will wonder how the time seems to flash by so quickly--like our parents used to tell us when we were young.

One day, we’ll stare up at the stars in heaven and know that we have been blessed and decide that if we had to do it all over again, we would.