The one thing no one told me is that marriage will sometimes feel like a...

The one thing no one told me is that marriage will sometimes feel like a partnership running a small business, not a romance. You spend so much time on logistics - whose turn is it to buy toilet paper, how to split the mortgage, coordinating doctor appointments for aging parents, deciding whether to fix the dishwasher or buy a new one. The romance doesn't die, but it gets shoved into a corner while you negotiate life together like co-CEOs.

I remember about three years in, I felt this weird resentment bubbling up. I thought something was wrong with us. Turns out, I was just tired of being the one who always remembered to renew the car insurance. My husband was tired of always being the one to call the plumber. We had to sit down and literally create a chore and admin spreadsheet like we were running a company. It felt unromantic, but it saved us. Now we have "state of the union" meetings once a month where we talk about budgets and goals over a bottle of wine. That's become our thing.

The hard lesson is that love doesn't make the practical stuff go away. You have to actively choose to be business partners, not just lovers. And that's okay. It actually makes the romantic moments sweeter because they're not weighed down by unspoken resentments about who left the empty milk carton in the fridge.

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Howard Kailey @kaileyhoward5460

hmm. that spreadsheet part hit me hard. we had the exact same fight about the car insurance last year and i was like 'why am i the only one who notices this stuff??' turns out he was keeping track of all the home maintenance things i never even think about. we ended up with a shared notes app list lol. the state of the union thing is actually kind of genius though... might have to steal that idea
2 days ago

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