Right after we got married, all of our friends asked me if the relationship changed. I would usually reply with a smart-ass comment, such as “Well now we file our taxes together.”
Change usually has a bad connotation when describing a relationship. You don’t want things to change because you love each other, and you don’t want anything to disrupt that. I knew there wouldn’t be any surprises because we’d lived together for almost four years. In that time, we’ve moved together multiple times, raised two dumb dogs and worked together at different restaurants.
Nothing has changed, ultimately. We’re still just two goofy souls sharing a life together, so the core of us is still the same. But since we were married, our relationship has evolved. I just started noticing all our lifestyle alterations recently.
It’s the small things that come up. Such as shopping for groceries and deciding that we should eat healthier, and then reluctantly put back all the crackers and chips in exchange for fruit and vegetable snacks. Taking vitamins in the morning, encouraging each other to exercise and doing yoga every other day. Or talking about canceling the cable because we could be spending our time more productively — plus it will save money (and with instant Netflix, and the Internet you can get by without it anyway).
And you can tell Tyler wants to take care of the household. Every week he sits down and makes sure we’re sticking to our budget, saving enough money and that all of our bills are paid for. This is a far cry from the boy who used to not want to monitor his spending because it would stop him from living in the moment.
None of this actually struck me as an evolution of our relationship until he picked up his guitar a couple weeks ago. When we come home from work I’ll pour myself a glass of wine, he’ll have a beer and he’ll practice a new song he’s trying to learn. I’ll sing along and tap my foot to help him keep the right tempo. He’s even teaching me to play a song right now.
Seeing the guitar permanently stored in our living room reminded me of seeing Steve’s guitar propped up with sheet music in the office. Just like his dad, he is constantly learning how to do something else. I’m sure sometime down the road he’ll want to learn how to build a dinghy too.
So I’m loving evolving with one another. We already aren’t the same people we were a year ago, and when the next decade passes it will be interesting to see who we are individually and as a couple.
I think it’s safe to say we won’t have any record deals in our future though.
