If I could go back in time, would I marry again?

My friend Mary threw a Gold Party over the weekend. At such parties, a guy with some fancy smantzy stuff (magnet, scale, acid, magnifying loop) looks at all of the old, gaudy, cruddy gold jewelry you no longer want and he offers you money for it. Since gold is the one investment still worth something in this economy, the women who attend these parties generally go home obscenely happy.

Seriously. I kid you not. One divorcee from Mary’s party cashed in engagement rings (minus the stones), wedding bands, and other regretful leftovers from her past. We all hooted and cheered when we learned that these old marital relics would allow her to go home $1300 richer.

I, however, went home penniless. I’ve never liked gold jewelry. The only gold pieces in my entire collection were gifts from others and, as I learned from Mr. Gold Man, none were really gold. They were all fakes, including my high school ring. That was a bummer because I think my parents spent a week’s paycheck on that thing and I’m not sure whether or not I ever wore it.

I wasn’t all that disappointed. I mean, $10 or $20 would have been nice, but I hadn’t gone to the party for the money. I’d gone for the wine, the food, and because Mary asked me to go, and I love Mary (as every good woman should).

When I arrived, Mary was the only woman I knew, but that quickly changed, especially once Mary told everyone about my blog. Soon, I knew about the ins and outs of the current and past relationships of nearly every woman in the room, and they knew about mine, too.

It was a great time.

Toward the end of the evening, though, a woman asked me a question that stopped me short. This single 35 year old asked, “If you could go back in time, would you marry your husband again? I mean, really, would you? I just wonder. I have a hard time believing in marriage. I just don’t believe in it.”

I think I said something to the effect of, “Um, well, wow, that’s a good question.”

As I stood there looking befuddled, somewhere in my brain there was a voice screaming, “Say ‘yes’ you idiot. Just say, ‘yes’!” And somewhere else in my brain there was another voice screaming, “But I owe her my honesty, and, well, I’m not sure. Would I?”

Then, I said a bunch of mumbo jumbo like, “I’m really glad we worked on things and I am happy to be married to him now. We’re stronger now than ever, but it’s hard for me to know what I would do. I’d like to think I would marry him again.”

As I said this, one of the voices was telling me, “If you could go back in time, you’d go on a wild dating spree, and you know it!” And the other voice was telling that voice to just shut up already.

So Would I?

I thought about her question as I drove home. I thought about it that night as I was falling asleep. I thought about it all weekend long. I thought about it so much that I’m writing about it today, on a day when I’d planned to write Part 2 of How to Face Your Biggest Fear. (No worries: that’s coming soon. Really, it is.)

And after spending two whole days pondering deep marital thoughts, I’ve decided that, yes, I would marry my husband all over again. I would because I am now a better person than I was 13 years ago when I met him, and I do believe he had something to do with my personal growth.

If my husband had not been the type of person who does not have a worry in the world, I would not have had the courage to leave my paying job at a national consumer magazine and go freelance.

If he had not been a beer connoisseur, I would have never discovered my love of hops and I’d probably still be drinking Amstel Light instead of any craft beer with the phrase “hops explosion” in its name.

If he had not also loved to travel and eat, I probably would not have tasted octopus in Greece, fish gills in Turkey, roti in Dominica, or lingonberries in Finland.

If he had not been such a colossal slacker, I would never have developed my assertive voice.

Yes, indeed, my husband’s so-called faults are what forced me to become a better, stronger, happier person. If he had been the type of man who doted on me and catered to my every need, I could have remained meek. If he had been the type of man who earned millions, I could have remained too scared to excel in my career. If he had been a Type A worry-a-holic like me, I’m sure we’d both been addicted to some sort of tranquilizers by now.

And if he hadn’t have been so God forsaken stubborn, I’d never have had the sweet satisfaction that comes from seeing him eventually come around to my point of view.

For example, for years my husband and I have bickered about the proper way to fold the laundry. He takes things out of the dryer and makes one huge pile. I’ve very nicely asked him on more than one occasion if he wouldn’t mind sorting the clothes into categories rather than putting them all together in one big lump. My reasoning was this: it’s much easier to take an entire pile of underwear and stick it in a drawer all at once than it is to take one item at a time off a huge pile, put that one item away, and return to the huge pile to get the next item. I also thought the pile sorting would prevent the common occurrence of me finding our daughter’s little socks mixed in with my panties.

His response to this request was: Fat chance.

Seriously. This is the man I live with.

Until recently, I solved our little laundry war by asking our cleaning lady, who comes once a week, to sort through my husband’s big lump of a pile and put the clothes away for me. I figured she was getting paid for her frustration.

Well, recently money got a bit tight, so we had to let the cleaning lady go. On this sad day, my husband and I sat down and split up all of the cleaning tasks. I took the kitchen, bathroom and dining room. He got the rest of the house. He also got the job of putting away the folded clothes.

The other day, I walked into the basement in search of a pair of clean underwear. Do you want to know what I found? Numerous nicely folded piles of clothes is what I found! My shirts were in one pile, my exercise clothes in another, and my underwear in yet another. Our daughter’s clothes had their own pile, too.

It was folded laundry nirvana. It nearly took my breath away. I stood and stared at this miracle on Earth for a good 60 seconds.

With a humongous grin, I took two of the piles upstairs with me and put them away.

I did not tell my husband about this discovery, mind you. I did not gloat outwardly in any way. I didn’t have to. It felt incredible to be proven right after so many years of him telling me that my laundry system was wrong.

If he had not been such a stubborn person, I would never have experienced this satisfaction.

You see? He has both been one of my life’s greatest challenges as well as one of my life’s greatest rewards. Marriage is the second hardest thing I’ve ever done, with parenthood being the hardest. But, just as I would never go back in time and undo my decision to become a mother, I also would not undo my decision to become a wife.

Yes, I would marry that pain in the ass stubborn slacker all over again. It would be an honor.

If you could go back in time, would you still marry your spouse? Why or why not? Leave a comment.

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Tagged as: gold parties, Marriage Advice