The Surprising Secret to a Successful Marriage

Sleep. It does a body good.

We have a three bedroom house, and the three of us (me, The Kid, and The Husband) each have our own rooms. Of course, I have the master bedroom.* So when my brother came to visit the other weekend, we were required to double up our sleeping arrangements. My brother and my niece shared a room, much to the chagrin of my niece.** And of course, my husband and I shared a room for the weekend. On Sunday night, after they left, we happily went our separate ways.

MidJourney prompt: commercial photograph of a queen size canopy bed, on black isolated plain, --ar 4:5 --s 250

* This is because The Kid likes to stay up all hours of the night, giggling and watching TikTok, and I have a notoriously difficult time falling asleep if said child is giggling and watching TikTok videos.

** I offered a blow-up mattress …

Communication, schommunication. The real secret to a long and happy marriage? Lots of bed space.

Part of the issue … really a very small part … is that I roll around a lot when I sleep. My husband often has to ward off martial art-like kicks while my subconscious works out all of its kinks. He is constantly accusing me of taking up more than my share of the bed. I have no idea what he is talking about.

We discovered the luxury of having lots of bed space a few years ago when we went on vacation. The only hotel room available was one with a king-sized bed. I think it was on one of our trips to California, which I find to be ironic since we had a California-king. I was able to miraculously flip and flop to my heart’s content.

Fast forward a few years, and us three are all that are left in the house. Our two older children have flown the coop. And we had a bedroom that was used as storage.

So here are my ten somewhat serious secrets for a successful marriage.

1. Marry well. Whatever that means for you, find the person that will give you what you want and need.

2. Have your own bedrooms. Enough said.

3. Leave your spouse alone for 30 minutes after he or she gets home from work/gets off of work.

4. Get off your damn phone. Social media sucks anyway. The Joneses are not better than you.

5. Eat dinner together. (Or breakfast or lunch. You do you, boo.)

6. Tell each other what you did that day at dinner.

7. Complain a lot to your spouse about everything else outside of the house. Good topics are: your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends, your enemies, your frenemies, bad drivers, and people who let their f****** dog take a crap on your lawn.

8. Refrain from complaining about your spouse unless it’s to your spouse.

9. But stay away from these topics: politics (unless you agree), religion (unless you agree), and Kim Kardashian/Kanye West.

10. Say “I love you.” Even if it’s in your head. I’m a huge believer in the power of positivity.

And my mother’s secret (bonus #11): Date each other once per week. Make a rule that you can talk about anything except about the children.

Promos

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Quick! Grab a free story before they’re gone! An all-genre free book giveaway. Ends June 15.

Happenings

I have Secret #12: Don’t be a fraud. I’m speaking about George Santos here, who was recently slapped across the face with 13 counts of fraud and money laundering, not to mention his padded resume and bank check scam in Brazil. I wrote about the 13 different counts, in case you are interested in knowing what the feds charged him with.

I’m trying (very hard) to slog through my backlog of books to read, so I started The Missing Piece by John Lescroart. It’s been on my NetGalley to-do reading list forever. Since this is a legal thriller, I will (eventually) throw up a review and recap on my website.

Also, I’m hoping to have some more book reviews up on my site, but right now I’m rewatching Season 2 of Goliath. That’s because I was supposed to do one of my massive recaps (see Season 1 and Season 4 … I have no idea why I went out of order).

And the website is up and running, although nowhere close to being done.

Oreo and Brownie

This week, Tanya sent in a picture of her two lovely rabbits. I love their names. I also think bunnies are quite cute.

Oreo and Brownie share a bedroom, but they like it.

Send in your pictures of fur, feathered, or scaly babies. I love to feature them in my newsletter. Joe will thank you, since he doesn’t have to model for me that week.