Is yours a good marriage?

My hubby and I have been married 15 years this October. We think that we have a good marriage. We like each other. We enjoy being together. We do fight, rarely. We don't always agree, but we tend not to be ugly about it. We trust each other. We give each other space or not, as requested.

One of our friends is having some trouble. He says “Suz lets R” and his wife says, “Don't even go there. L doesn't even let E leave the house without her.” I don't think you should be constantly comparing yourself to someone else, but sometimes it's inevitable. My husband says, “If they are comparing, do they want their marriage to be like L&E's or like ours?” It was an interesting question.

Of course, what works for us won't work for other people. That family doesn't homeschool; they have paid off cars and new pool; they have extra money in the bank; he gets three months off a year from work, paid. They don't have our situation. We don't have theirs.

We know a lot of people fairly well (maybe not here but back in Austin and NC). We think that we have the best marriage of all our friends. One couple has a good marriage now, but they went through some really hard times for the first 10 or so years. They're on 26 now.

Some of my friends really love their spouses and are committed to their marriages, but there are some really bad things which have gone down and they haven't recovered from it. One couple the husband was told by the psychiatrist treating his wife for abuse that his wife was going to have an affair and the husband should just prepare for it and get over it. That was 7 years ago. The wife just found out about the “prognosis” this last year. Of course she hasn't cheated on her husband. But now she knows where this insane need to know where she was every minute came from 7 years ago. Since they talked about it, he is much less freaked out about her doing stuff.

I'm glad I married my husband, even when we're both going crazy.