Tonight I asked Hubs what was an issue in our marriage. I wasn’t trying to start a fight, I just needed something to blog about tonight.

Here’s the things he listed, in order of how they occur throughout the day.

1. “You waking me up before my alarm.”

2. “There’s hair on the bathroom floor. It’s everywhere, seriously.”

3. “You always put my coat away. I just want it left out!”

4. “The sheets are always messed up before bed.”

5. “You always want to stay up and talk when it’s bedtime.”

Ok, those are all fair complaints, but since we’re trying to learn and figure out all this marriage stuff, we didn’t just leave it at that. We both had to talk it out, at least a little bit.

Here’s my side of the matter:

1. When I took this internship and set my hours, he suggested I go to work at 7:30 to avoid bad traffic. I know he did this because he loves me and wants me to get to work safely without me having to freak out on the way there every day. He offered to get up and cook me breakfast. I declined because I know he was just trying to be nice and that he didn’t really want to get up that early. He would have, but he didn’t really want to. I am sorry that he has to wake up with my alarm, but there’s not much I can do about it. And the reason I go and wake him up a few minutes before his alarm goes off? I know he’s already hit snooze twice and that it’s time for him to get up. Plus, I’m tired of being up by myself and want him to get up and say goodbye to me. I understand why he doesn’t get up before then since I’m in the bathroom, but still, it’s a part of our morning routine that I don’t see changing too much in the future.

2. The hair is a problem. I understand it’s icky and awful. But because it’s icky and awful, I don’t like to clean it. I do clean it, just not every day, because that would be crazy and take way way way too much time. I’m sorry, but unless a chop it all off, it’s a part of living with a girl he’ll have to get used to.

3. I put the coat away because we have a coat closet. We’ll figure out a system eventually…maybe.

4. Let’s go back to number 1. Who’s the last one out of bed? He is. I understand that a freshly made bed is better, but we’ll have to work out a plan for whose responsibility that is. That will be a discussion for another day. He says I don’t always get up first. It’s true that I don’t, but I usually do, so I don’t see how that helps that much…

5. I want to stay up and talk because it’s a time of the day I’ve looked forward to spending with him for the past six years. It’s important and special and my favorite time of the day. In my opinion, he doesn’t mind as much as he says he does. I know he’s sleepy. I’m sleepy too, but to me, it’s worth it.

And where the conversation ended?

If these are the biggest issues in our marriage, I’d say we’re doing pretty well so far. It’s a learning experience, sure, hence the ease at which he came up with this list and how quickly I formulated my responses. The big picture is that we know these are little things and we treat them as such.

Do we need to discuss some of these things more? Probably. We should think about making the bed more regularly, and vacuuming the hair off the bathroom floor.

And I’ll eventually learn that I don’t have to talk to Hubs at the end of the night for fifteen to thirty minutes in order to savor the moment and the fact that we’ve made it this far together in life and love. It’s been a long time since I wasn’t even allowed to go on “car dates!”