Candle Lights and a Romantic Dinner.

My husband and I have been married for 14 years. We have been “together” for 19 years come this August. 19 years! When we started dating I thought if we made 2 months that that would be a good run. We have definitely exceeded my expectations. Ask me how this happened. Okay, I will tell you; but it’s just because you asked.

One afternoon after we had started dating I was upset and sobbing. David told me if he kissed my tears away we would be soul mates for life; like two lovebirds. Of course I thought he was crazy. 223 months later we are still together. We are the happiest when we are spending time together. When he is not here I miss him. If you want to gag I understand; however if you think about it we have no choice - we have the “Lovebird Curse”.

Definition of a Lovebird: The name Lovebird stems from these parrots' strong, monogamous pair bonding and the long periods of time in which paired birds will spend sat beside one another. This is reflected by the bird's name in other languages: in German, "die Unzertrennlichen", and in French "les inséparables", both meaning "the inseparables".

I don’t want to give you the impression that we are not without challenges. We have two areas that have threatened one of us to move out and get our own “cage”.

Number 1: We fight over lamps- to be honest we fight about all lighting fixtures. We can not agree on lighting. We have had to do a lot of compromising. If we didn’t I would be sitting in the dark at this very moment. We have almost gotten divorced in the lighting department in IKEA.


David: Oooo…I love this lamp! Amy, come here, and look at this lamp. (I should mention that he is all smiles.)

(I know this is a trap. I know I should just stay put. I don’t want to cause a scene. But nonetheless I drag myself over to him. This should be an excellent show for the other shoppers. Hey why are they selling popcorn? And where did those theater seats come from? I don’t remember those when we came into the lamp department. And do I hear the movie voice over guy?)

Me: David! It is a stop light lamp! Tell me you are kidding.
David: I really like it, but I also like this one.
Me: David, really, we do not need a lamp that changes colors! Come with me, and I will show you some REAL lamps.

(I show him the “grown-up” lamps.)

David: I hate it…I don’t like it…I hate it…WHERE we would we put that?

Then a miracle happens. I pick up a lamp and he says: “That one isn’t too bad.”

I did it. No more showing him lamps. He could change his mind, and we could end up with a stop sign lamp on our wall. Then something terrible happens. IKEA has sold out of our “marriage saving lamp”! It seems that the lamp we want has probably salvaged a lot of trouble marriages. I crumble to the ground, and start to cry.


(The voice over guy poses the question: “Will David kiss her tears, or buy the traffic lamp?)
David reaches for my hand, and he kisses me, and then we badmouth IKEA for the next 20 minutes.

“How dare they not have the lamp we want? What were those buyers thinking not buying enough lamps? I think we should boycott this store.”
“I agree.”
“I mean forever.”
“Me too.”
“Well we can come back for inexpensive kitchenware, and tea lights, but that’s all.”
“Agreed”
“Let’s go out for lunch.”
“Where do you want to go?”

That brings me to the second issue: We can not agree on where to eat. We can spend an hour driving around “picking out" a restaurant; only to end up at a fast food establishment. In order to save our marriage we both accepted that this is our way of life. As a result we don’t go out for dinner that often. And we do go out we take Holly with us and make her to pick the restaurant. She is better at it then we are, so it works well. Everyone is happy.

I will be honest we did have one fight about where to eat. It was our 3rd anniversary, and I asked David to take me out to dinner for our anniversary. When I got in the car he asked me where I wanted to go. I was so mad, because he had not planned dinner. I thought he should have planned it, because this was the only thing I asked for as a gift. I refused to talk to him. We drove around in silence. (Now that I think about it it’s pretty funny.) I finally told him I wanted to go to McDonalds. (He was mad at that point. Good it served him right!) We got home, we were about to get out of the car; but before we did, there were some words exchanged which caused me to throw my fries at him. (HA HA HA!) He sat in the car stewing for an hour or so. I went into the house to stew. I did feel bad. I finally went out to the car and told him I was sorry. We did end up going out for dinner that night, but I can’t remember where we went. We made a promise to each other never to let poor dinner planning get that out of hand again.

March 18 we celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. We were not able to go out for dinner due to circumstances. That was a close call!