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Community Corner

He's the L to my OL

Who didn't aspire to have a relationship like Paula's with the cartoon cat?

In the insightful and immortal words of Paula Abdul, “slur mumble batcrap crazy comment."

I mean, “Opposites Attract.”

That is the only possible explanation as to why my husband and I have stayed married for (almost) 12 years now. My husband and I have very different backgrounds. He was raised Catholic. I sampled from the religion buffet. His parents were extremely conservative with money. My parents were extremely “live for today” with money. His extended family is small and painfully quiet. My extended family is huge and painfully boisterous. He is analytical. I am impulsive. He’s a boy. I’m a girl. The differences go on and on ...

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Having different approaches to just about everything can be challenging at times, and we have both learned to communicate in a way that the other will understand and respond positively to. This is why I recently sent him a PowerPoint presentation (completely true) outlining , complete with a cost-benefit analysis and graphics. It is also the reason he plays the “fifty dollar game” with me. The “fifty dollar game” goes something like this: No matter what I purchase — anything from a pair of shoes to plane fare to tickets to events we want to see — he will ask me its cost, and I will respond, “Fifty dollars.” Even though we both know that most times, the item costs much more than that, he is comfortable with expenditures up to that amount and therefore, my response makes both of us happy.

Ultimately, I think it is great for our daughter, as we also have different perspectives that we bring to the parenting table. My husband gives her much more leeway in terms of taking risks and playing hard. I keep a bit of a tighter leash on that stuff, as I learned recently when she mimicked me by saying, “Careful, you’ll crack your head open.” (Though, to be fair, all of the head injuries to date have happened on his watch.)

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I may roll my eyes when he makes us go over budgets and talk about refinancing, and he may get a bit exasperated when I get stressed over Peeps diorama ideas or coming up with the perfect ending to a blog post.

As often as I am reminded of our differences, it is reassuring when something happens like it did this morning. He left a sticky note on the door to the garage as a reminder for me that the cleaning service was coming. The note?

Leave the back door open. (That’s what he said.)

And then I realize that we’re not so different, after all.

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