So summer must be coming to a close, but there is good news.

Jake, Pete and Kyle are back!

Lovely. (If you don't know who those guys are, check the sidebar for some of the best blogs ever.)

I got the comment again today. Someone wanted to know how long I have been married.

Six and a half years.

"Wow. I thought you were still newlyweds. I thought maybe you had been married a couple of months."

Well, why's that? Why a couple of months? Why newlyweds?

"Because of the stories you tell about him. You sound like you are so in love."

Well, duh. I'm married to him, right? What is marriage without love? People tease him saying that opposites must attract or ask him what he did to marry me. In college we were very much alike. We were best friends.

Things have changed since college. I have to wear suits and look like a million bucks so people will trust me to get my job done. He still wears jeans and T-shirts as often as he can get away with it, which is about 360 days a year.

He is a great musician, athlete and auto guy. I can't run and dribble a ball at the same time. I can't sing or play anything. Everything on a car is a "doohickey" and I think 99% of lowered vehicles are ugly.

Yet we are still best friends. I think because my heritage of family role models is great. My grandparents used to tell me, "Some people think that they have to give 50% in a marriage. Expect to give 110%."

I realize that is mathematically impossible. But somedays when my husband has had a rough day, I have to give more of myself than I want to. Somedays the relationship works because I will it to. Luckily, he subscribes to the same motto. The days that I am being bitchy for no reason he puts up with me. He patiently deals with me. He doesn't patronize or condesend or get angry. He lets me have my addictive quirks to cleaning even at his own discomfort. (Think modes of Monica from friends in the scary obsessive cleaning department.)

The other thing my grandparents told me is that my marriage is like a boxing ring. You have to be in the other person's corner no matter what. You have to be there to back them up. It's the two of us against the world. I never put him down, correct him, or do anything to disrespect him in public. He does the same for me. He sticks up for me to other people even when I am being completely ridiculous and demanding. (It happens.) He would rather lose face or drop a notch in someone else's view than to compromise me and leave me fighting for myself.

I dunno where this all came from. Just to say that my husband serves me the world on a golden platter. What's not to love? Why would I ever wander, stray or begrudge him anything?