My husband and I are wired completely differently. I love to read and to write, he prefers picture books and cannot spell to save his life. He prefers the wilderness (hunting, fishing, etc.) and I love to spend a few days in a big city. I am the eternal optimist, and he is the eternal pessimist (or “realist”, according to him). He excels at team sports and I am a runner. You get the idea.

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We’re exactly one week away from Christmas (Don’t shoot the messenger!) and tensions seem to be running high not just for my husband and I, but for many of our friends. It’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, but it seems to be turning into one big headache instead. Here are a few tips to stay connected with your other half during the holidays.

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My husband and I arrived home from work yesterday — he at a renovating job, me at the local food bank — and sat down to see what we had on our respective agendas. Friday afternoon/evening is a birthday party/dinner for our nephew, Saturday afternoon/evening is preparing for and then attending a family Christmas event at the church my husband works at. Sunday morning is church (where he runs the children’s program), and Sunday afternoon he plans to go shopping for gifts for his staff members and volunteers.

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I’m in New York City for a blogger event, and in order to get here, I had to catch a 6 a.m. flight yesterday. I had to be at the airport at 4 a.m., which means that I had to wake up at 2:30 a.m. It was as awful as you might imagine.

I slipped out of bed, walked quietly to the bathroom, shut the door behind me, and turned on the light. Awaiting me was a post-it note from my husband telling me that he loved me and to have a fun trip. When I went into the kitchen, he had written a post-it note with ‘I love you more!’ on it, and when I went to pack my laptop, he had written me another note. (See above photo.)

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‘Finding your soul mate’ is a big thing in our culture. You will meet him (or her) and you will discover that you are the other half of each others’ puzzle. Romantic music will play in the background and you will live your lives together in a state of romantic comedy-esque bliss.

I don’t know if I believe that there is one ’soul mate’ for every person because, well, the Earth has a lot of human inhabitants. That said, I cannot imagine being married to anyone other that my husband. We have our differences, of course — he is a pessimist (he says he’s a ‘realist’) and I am the eternal optimist.

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In line with my last post about having a “healthy” sex life, I learned about the Lifetime show called 7 days of sex. I’ve written about previous ’seven days of sex’ and ‘30 days of sex’ challenges, but this is a new spin on it. This is a T.V. show that is chronicling real-life couples who are having sex for one week straight with the hope of saving their marriage.

30 days is a little bit over the top many and also for us (except for when we were wanting to be pregnant), but for those who are feeling disconnected and struggling, seven days straight is totally doable. (Heh.)

Would you, could you, take the ’seven days of sex’ challenge?

I don’t know what constitutes a “healthy” sex life, exactly, but I have to guess that it constitutes actually having sex. As I mentioned last week, my husband attended a conference in Atlanta. One of the sessions he attended was about marriage and there were some statistics that shocked him a little bit. There are people our age (mid-thirties) who are married and don’t have sex. Ever.

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I asked my three kids what they think marriage means.

My oldest:

You’re married to someone that you, um, love. And you really like them.

My middle:

It means that you find someone and, uh, that you really like? And you, um, like, to really know about about each other. And you go out for date nights and you get married.

My youngest:

It means that you love someone very much and you just want to marry them. Then they go out for date nights.

Well, I’m obviously not making stuff up when I write about date nights here. My kids know that we make them a priority and that they are important.

What does marriage mean to you and/or your kids?

There’s been a lot of talk in the press about how Angelina Jolie cried when Brad proposed to her. I’m not sure that that little tidbit is newsworthy, but it did get me thinking.

Did I cry when we got engaged? No. Well, I don’t think so. I tend to be a crier, whether happy or sad, but I don’t remember crying that night. I remember saying yes, and hugging, and kissing, and smiling so hard that I should have been worried about my face cracking.

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This past Sunday I watched my husband, in character as a street cleaner in Jerusalem, talking about Passover in a monologue/skit that he dreamed up and performed. He gets up in front of over 400 people every Sunday to do an object lesson (Sometimes it’s Coca-Cola and Mentos, sometimes there’s fire involved, you get the idea)(He surprises everyone every week). I feel like he surprises me the most every week, because he never tells me what tricks he has up his sleeve ahead of me watching with everyone else. I’ve been married to him for almost twelve years and the young punk I married would not be standing up there, so comfortable in his skin and his role and doing the crazy things he does.

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