When two years ago my niece asked me if I thought I had a good marriage, she caught me off guard, and I told her; “We are good roommates. And we don’t fight.” That was something that was hard to say. Mostly because she was 14 and I didn’t want to let her in on what had been stirring inside of me for a long time. A good marriage was a confusing term for me and that was very telling.

My then husband’s answer to her question was something he had been saying “as a joke” for a long time, and I don’t think it was what a 14-year-old should hear, but then, we had no kids, luckily. As a father, he would get a -10 in my book. He told her: “There are two kinds of women you can marry: a crazy bitch or an angry bitch. I married the crazy.” This explains a lot. I’m still uneasy about him talking like that to a teen, but I’m upset at myself that I hadn’t stopped him the first time he had joked about it. When a joke is recurrent, there is some truth to those words. True that I thought he was many things, but I didn’t voice them and least of all with a teen who is still in wondrous awe at life.

So, having a good marriage is something I cannot define because I haven’t experienced it. Just wish that some people were a little more sensitive and careful with what they blurt out.

Just a note: I’m the crazy one, but the fun one too!