CuppaGemma

In half a year much has happened.

Or perhaps not much at all.

May I say both?

There is a particular kind of happiness that comes from being settled. The boys get taller, Chris and I laugh. There is much bustle. He’s on planes to Europe, I’ve done 400 mile day trips to work with clients. We like the energy of it all. Ryan goes through more and more books. Thomas continues to take things apart and re-purpose them to work more effectively. Chris makes us all waffles on Sundays.

There’s a comfort in the morning routine of the boys not wanting to wake up, and us hurrying off to get into the city as my parents take the boys into school. It’s rather nice to commute in together and depending on who has an early meeting or not- then make the walk longer so we can grab a coffee and chat more before parting ways in our respective hats. We meet back at the library and head home. The four of us talk in the evening. Their dad calls or Skypes often.

Lately there’s been a few stories on stepfamilies and remarriages because of a Pew Research survey, “The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families.”

I suppose our family unit would make for an interesting case study.

We’re both remarried, we both have kids, we share similar interests, education and earning potential. We were both separated for years. My husband is older then me and remarried soon after divorce. I took a few years and own my own home.

Neither of us had actively been seeking a partner out, it simply happened that our drive to solve issues at work began a friendship that has turned into a wonderful partnership.

Friendship, respect and support form the basis of our relationship. Maybe that’s not very exciting and researchers would prefer to cite socio-economic factors as key indicators of our success, or our desire to be married. (Except that neither of us thought it would be something we would want, until we knew one another.)

I actually like my husband. And I can’t underscore how much that matters in a relationship, that on a very basic level people “like” one another.

The “like” is what makes routine things enjoyable. We’ll walk together to the dry cleaners because we are happy for the conversation. It’s not a chore chart of assignments and resentments. We both know respect the intensity that work requires at times which may delay the dust bunny elimination from beneath the bed. So we deal with it together. Who does what shifts, depending on a changing set of variables.

What’s changed for us are the constants and the variables in our lives. Quite different then five or two years ago. I think that’s part of what has made the difference for us. We are willing to see potentials. Or perhaps you could call it refactoring.