In it for the long haul

Stand by folks, it’s gonnae get mushy.

Line up the boxes of tissues and prepare for a big lump in the throat, cos this one’s straight from the heart.

Who’d of thunk it? That the cool guy at work – you know, the one with the long hair halfway down his back, the green eyes, the nice smile and the freckly forearms – would one day deign to go on a date with yours truly. A date that involved much chat about the merits of modern music, and which mixer works best with Jack Daniels. You know, the important stuff of life.

And who’d of thunk it, that from that very date – 14 years ago, if anyone’s counting – a match made in heaven would blossom?

Well, I thunk it, actually. Right from the word go, I knew that this freckly fella was the one for me. Yes, he had baggage. Yes, he came with a fully formed personality and very definite opinions of his own. Yes, he had an unfortunate affection for the music of Neil Young. And yes, he supported Airdrie FC. But despite all of this, and a variety of other personality defects too gruesome to go into here, the Beardy Boy was always gonnae be a winner.

But I dunno about match made in heaven. Is there actually any such thing? As they say in agony aunt columns and all other platforms spouting relationship guru guff, you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth. And our relationship has roughed it with the best of them.

Oh yes, there have been times when frying pans or other weapons of marital destruction have been poised over the head of the sleeping other half. There’s been shouting and bawling, strops, huffs, moods, fallings out, and dire threats aplenty.

Together, we’ve been through terrible life events worthy of at least one double page spread in Real People magazine or a ten verse long country & western catastrophe ballad. We’ve been to the very limits of endurance, but somehow or other managed to cling on to each other and shuffle back from the brink.

I hasten to add that our partnership has not been all about teetering on the brink, there’s been smooth as well as rough. Nah, come to think of it, smooth ain’t exactly what we do. Our life together is a bit too bumpy and lumpy to be considered smooth. But it’s never boring, and we do have something really, really special. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but we just work. And we’ve been working, together, for a long, long time.

As of next week, the Beardy Boy and I will have been hitched for ten years. TEN whole years. Count ’em, baby, TEN years.

Not bad, eh? A decade is pretty good going on the modern marriage front by anyone’s standards, but I’m hoping to clock up many, many more years on the matrimonial mileometer.

It’s simple, see. That cool guy with the green eyes and freckly forearms has long since lost the rock god flowing locks in favour of a more mature silver fox barnet, but he’s still cool, still got that lovely smile, is still a cheeky git, and still makes me laugh like a stank. He’s my support mechanism, my other half, my rock and the best thing since sliced pan breid. In short, he is the love of my life.

We’re a team, and we’re in it for the long haul, so I hope you’ll join us on the 14th of May by raising a glass to the longevity of love.

My hubby’s put up with me for this long, so I think we can agree – the boy’s got balls and staying power.