Being married later than most comes with challenges and I struggle with it sometimes.
On one hand, people say you've just skipped your first failed marriage and jumped straight to the successful one. But on the other, it's an expression of my life's failings, my inability to be a normal person and to be accepted by the everyday woman.
I spent my whole life battling insecurities and my extreme introversion, but I must admit I'm a bit of a charmer. This meant I had no real problem getting the girl, so to speak, but keeping hold of them was nigh on impossible.
It took a lot of trial and error, a lot of introspection, a lot of difficult admissions of ones foibles. A lot more than average, I suspect. I had to get it down to a T (never understood that expression).
Before I eventually got it right, I not only made bad impressions during the relationships, but I also just made bad choices in the first place. People who clearly weren't meant for me. I'd fall into hopeless romantic traps and my insecurities manipulated me to try way too hard to make it work, when anyone else would have seen it was futile.
One lasted 5 years and was a loveless waste of my youth. But I regrettably kept clinging on, because I had such low self-esteem, self-worth, that I couldn't even conceptualize any other alternative short of being alone forever.
In fact, when she did ultimately cheat on me a few times, I remained single for a long time. Years, I guess, I can't remember exactly.
It was an extraordinarily long time of being alone, including while in that 'relationship'.
I still live with a lot of my problems, as I suppose we all do. But marriage has had a gradual but powerful effect on me. I know it's purely symbolic and could fall apart at any time, but the cultural expectation of what a marriage is, is something permanent. A commitment through every trial and tribulation.
I can more freely acknowledge to myself and to her that I'm a difficult chunk of garbage that, for some miraculous reason, she has chosen to love and value. She sees the kindness and honesty in me, and my battle to improve myself, and this is apparently more than enough.
It's increasingly exciting to tentatively touch my paws to the grass which I had never felt until now, after a lifetime in a circus cage. The idea of trusting somebody, somehow knowing through faith alone, that I'm not being cheated on again. That I'm not being talked about behind my back, that I'm not considered disgusting (outside of my own perception, at least).
Her family can joke that I've gotten fatter since the last time we met, and I can just let that go in a jokey way and it doesn't haunt me or eat away at me for weeks. They say it with love and a smile, and that's all that matters.
And when we fight, the idea that it is going to lead to divorce has evaporated. We're allowed to disagree and make mistakes. We're allowed to be pissed from time to time. Eating one doughnut doesn't cause a heart attack. It's fine.
And by experiencing that freedom and trust, I feel more free to explore self-improvement. I can see more paths for our future to take. My limited idea of how things should be is more of a soft suggestion than a be-all-end-all demand.
The fact that I got married at 36 after countless failures means I'm a battle-hardened romantic. Still imperfect, absolutely. But I'm wiser, more cautious. I'm more philosophical in my approach, more willing to sit and listen to different views, and more capable of accepting that people are different, and we all feel and see things differently. I'm more strongly repelled by childish toxicity and will stomp it out the moment I smell its stench.
Though I can't guarantee this will be a lifelong journey together - it's only been a year - I damn well hope so. It gets better every week and I want to keep it going that way. I want to live to 200 just to make up for lost time.
Anyway, I suppose this is just my thoughts after our anniversary the other day. I'm grateful for being put up with, and that alone will be a debt I can never repay but will spend a lifetime trying!