My sweetie *is* polite...thought he and I both agree that some things are best accomplished behind closed doors ; ).

I'll talk to you in PM about specific stuff, if you like, but the heavy stuff that we worked through is pretty personal for this Tribe. I will say that when we started out, we fought a LOT, and now we never do. He was a good midwestern boy brought up in parochial school for 13 years, a varsity jock whose family hunted and fished for fun, and he'd had something like 2 girlfriends. I was a city girl, a smoker, a heathen, a divorcee, a loud liberal, and a bisexual wild thing with a string of fast relationships behind me, and no desire to settle down. NOBODY thought it would work, and I don't even know what got us to try hard enough to make it. But we battled a lot, and we compromised on everything that we could, and agreed to disagree on other things, and we couldn't live without each other <lol>. We also grew to be much more alike over the years (though I'm still the crazy one, and he's still the stable one), which makes it much easier.

It's been fun, and we've been through some hard stuff, but it drew us closer rather than putting a wedge between us. I feel blessed, and *lucky*, even though I know that we've done a lot of work. It's amazing to me that I have this 20-year old relationship, with my history, and my family's history. We just talk a lot, kept open minds, and always tried to remember how much more important loving this person was than anything petty, like who takes out the trash. It's a gift, to have a happy marriage, and I try to remember that every day.

Okay, enough of MY sage wisdom. What about everyone else's!?