So, you know we bought a house, right? But, you may not know that we haven’t moved into it yet. The townhouse hasn’t sold, so we stayed because somehow I got it into my head that it would “show” better fully dressed. (I’m hear to tell you that paying two mortgages is the least fun you’ll ever have in your life. But, that’s the way the financial markets crumbled.) So, to recap, we have:

• Our new house — all 2,700 square feet of it waiting to be filled
• Our joint townhouse that we currently live in — on the market for 6 months and she ain’t gettin’ any younger
• Husband’s original townhouse, which has been paid off and acting like a storage unit for his stuff for the last six  years. (He only moved in clothes and the espresso machine to the joint townhouse.)

That’s a lot of household. That’s a long time to be married, and in Husband’s case, to be away from your stuff.

So, we’ve I’ve reached the breaking point. We’re moving into the new house in 10 days. (I am no good at waiting. Plus back in April I moved all my cute boots and autumn clothes to said new house and I miss them.)

Besides, who would want to wait on this view (taken from the front porch of the new house)?

So, now that we are moving into our “final resting place” home, it is time to really merge our stuff.

This weekend I spent six hours packing up “his” kitchen. What an interesting experience. I started with the pantry. Yuck. After throwing out cans and cough syrup that expired back in 2007, I had started to give up on this merging thing. I was ready to bring in the dumpster. But, then I made a discovery that changed it all.

First, Husband has been holding out on me.  Opening up the abandoned kitchen cabinets was like shopping at Williams and Sonoma.

I knew about the wedgewood china. I also knew he had better wine glasses over there. But, I discovered all kinds of culinary goodies in his cabinets. Beautiful blue and white German egg cups, real crystal red wine goblets, authentic German beer steins, French linen napkins, and then the pièce de résistance – a 42 piece copper cookware set.

I shall pause for you to catch your breath. (Personally, I had to sit on the kitchen floor for a minute.)

It took three hours to pull all the pans, pots and skillets with matching lids from three different cabinets and nestle them in bubble wrap in thrice taped boxes (all the while saying a silent prayer that the movers don’t throw out their backs when they lift the boxes).

And, dag I didn’t take a picture for you! Argh. So, here’s a stock photo to illustrate:

Multiply those by six. Of course, I will now spend the entire Thanksgiving weekend polishing them up. But, yee-ha, new shiny things to have in the kitchen.

So as to avoid sounding completely materialistic, we also managed to fill several boxes for Goodwill, including two small brass tea pots, a complete knife set in a chopping block thingee, coffee mugs galore, an assortment of plastic Christmas holly clusters, and (I kid you not) two electric knives — right out of the 70s.

Okay, so not every cabinet was like visiting Williams and Sonoma. But, the copper pots were worth the digging. Yes, this merging thing can be fun if you know where to look.

When you merged households, what treasures did you find?

I started this blog out of desperation need, when I discovered so few resources on getting married for the first time later in life (read: over age 40). Most of the advice I found on relationships were geared toward

• women seeking a man
• people seeking their second spouse
• people trying to get the spark back after 20 years of marriage, kids and a mountain of poopy diapers and bills

In other words, not me. Now after six years of marriage, I realize there actually is quite a lot more “they” don’t tell you about this kind of relationship. Below are six things I’ve learned that I have yet to see explored deeply (or I’m not looking hard enough).

1. It takes a few years to feel married. I mean you spend a year planning for a few-hour event called The Wedding. Then, after you say the vows before the priest, rabbi or justice of the peace or whoever, you are supposedly, magically meant to feel different? It’s kind of like turning 21. It happens, you drink a lot, and then you wake up feeling kind of the same.

It took me at least four years to truly feel married. The “feeling” of being married comes in a few forms: there is an automatic checking-in thing that happens, I don’t worry about looking attractive to other men, and I am concerned about Husband all the time. It’s like everything I do or think considers this other person. It took about four years to really get there.

2. To have a good marriage you have to spend time together. This may mean endless nights of sitting  on the couch with him, as he watches the news, surfs on his laptop and talks on the phone all at once. I figured it didn’t matter if I was there or not. But, when I wasn’t there a lot, Husband got cranky. Somehow just being there is important. (Note: If you want to still go to dance class every night of the week, jet off to NYC friends whenever, and not worry about what time you’ll get home after work, take a lover not a husband.) Husbands require physical presence. So, marry one you like to spend a lot of time with.

3. Being nice to each other is important.  It’s easy to get really lazy here. Don’t. If you are more polite to the Fed Ex man that you are to your spouse, see number two above.

4. Make sure you’re having enough sex. Do not let this slip. (Right now all the single men and ladies are saying to their computer screen, What? Are you kidding me? That will never be a problem for me.) Uh, right. You will be shocked –shocked, I tell you — at how easy it is to just tell him or yourself tomorrow night, honey, I’m too tired right now. Sex is the difference between rooming with a friend and being married. Make it happen.

5. Have an inside joke. This can be anything that is just between you and him (or her). It should be personal and unexplainable to others. (Note: Do not try to explain it to others. It ceases to be powerful. Plus, they won’t get it.) Keep it sacred. Keep it between you both.

6. It’s okay to not feel like you’ll die if you don’t get to see him/her. In other words, it’s okay to want to be apart or lose that pining feeling. But, when you do, you should still like him (or her). If you don’t, you’re sunk. Likability is key to longlasting. Lust is very short term. Love is like waves – comes and goes throughout the day. Okay, that was really bad writing at the end. But, you get my drift, er wave.

Woot.

I celebrate because this means two things:

• I have the bed to myself.  So, I am getting great nights’ sleep.
• I have the thermostat to myself. This means I have been warm in my own house for the first time in months.

Below is an illustration of Husband and me and our temp differences. Notice the short sleeves and shorts on Husband. Notice the long sleeves and jeans on me. (This was taken at Oshkosh two years ago when I dared to sleep in a tent for four years four nights .)

Yes, there are benefits to living alone. And, I miss them.

There also are some drawbacks. Husband being gone means I have the bed to myself (which means there was nothing else to do but sleep, if you get my drift). And, I have the thermostat to myself but that means I also have no one to snuggle up against.

Yes, there are benefits to both sides of the marital fence. But, I submit, it’s okay to miss some things about being single. It’s not being disloyal. It’s being honest.

The truth is that neither state – married or single – is better. It’s just different. (Oh, please hear this single people who are pining – pining,  I tell ya – to get married.)

I like being married better, despite my moanings about being cold and tired and fighting for the remote and begging him to go to the movies with me and ….well, we’ll just leave it at that. When Husband returns I will be overjoyed. Because I miss him. But, I won’t feel guilty for liking my nights “off” from having a second person to be concerned with. If you are married, you shouldn’t either.

Do you know a bride or bride-to-be who is going to be changing her name and would like a little help? (Trust me, it’s not so cut and dried.)

I have five  gift cards for MissNotMrs.com - the group of experts to help you with your name change. Just post a comment to this blog post and I’ll randomly pick five people to send a card off to. So, ready , set, go get the goods.

Help yourself — or another girl — out.

My Current Top 5 Memories:

• The day on our honeymoon when we rented a plane and flew around the Hawaiian islands, Husband flying dangerously close to the water so I could see the sea turtles swim underneath us. (Okay, he scared me to death. But it was cool – after we landed.)
• Last Christmas Eve, when we decided to run some errands and found ourselves in a very crowded, traffic-hell-parking-hell shopping center. I admired an off white (completely impractical) Patagonia top. But, it being the “eve before giving,” I did not buy it for myself. Rather, Husband secretly returned later that afternoon (after we fought traffic home) to buy it for me.
• The day after our wedding. Rather than pack for our honeymoon, Husband spent six hours researching and then blotting out red wine, which I spilled on myself the night before, from my wedding dress. He did this on his hands and knees, on our tiled kitchen floor, until his hands were white. (Hydrogen peroxide turned out to be the magic ingredient.)
• Any morning he decides to stay in bed with me and snuggle (instead of leaping up to start the day). Ahhhh…
• Sitting across from Husband at (the real) Oktoberfest in Munich two years ago. Husband, smoking a cigar with Brother-In-Law, Andreas, swinging his litre beer mug to the song “Que sera sera ” while Sister and I polished off our second litre of beer. (You have not had real beer until you’ve been to Munich. Trust me.)

I hope in 10 years, I’ll have more memories to add to the pile. You can never have too many to choose from. What are you favorite memories?