Happy 44 years

Steve and I  married really young, I was 17, he was 21, everyone said we were stupid and it wouldn't / couldn't work!  We made a pact to prove them wrong. We were far from daft and completely understood we might change as we got older.  

We agreed if we got fed up with each other we'd just be honest and skip off in  separate ways to be happy rather than hang around and make each other unhappy. We stayed financially independent for the entire 44 years we were together. There were no joint bank accounts for us! We each paid our way or split things, I wasn't old enough for mortgage or loans so he sorted everything to do with home. Home was a leaky caravan for a couple of years, it always froze up and flooded inside in the winter. Nov- March we rarely had running water or bottled gas. Keeping warm happened by being at work for as long as possible in the daytime - do voluntary work in the evenings and we had lots of huge blankets!   Adversity kept us together, inspired me to plod on at college in the evenings  to get some decent qualifications to be able to avoid luxuries like our own heating . We  always joked and I always called him "my Current Husband". He always referred to me as his "First Wife" He was a bad joker and sometimes told staff in restaurants I was his girlfriend so  could we have a table away from crowds in case his any of his wife's friends are here.

Neither of us had a jealous bone in our body, we stayed together because we wanted to and divided our time accordingly me laughing about his numerous work wives and me my work husbands. Nothing sordid just freedom to enjoy life

Professional Time - We vowed never to interfere with each others career aspirations. We accepted we might get  jobs or have colleagues the other person might not like much. We'd trust each others judgement and not interfere. Steve had 4 careers over the years - postman,  construction, health then housing. I also had 4 established careers;  Commercial photography, retail management, teaching and charity management. All in all we both did well.  

Family Time - We vowed to do our best and simply be loving parents! We came from different loving  yet incredibly complicated backgrounds. We had both experienced the loss of parents at a very early age early age so the idea of being a traditional mum and dad together was our dream. So by age 20 I'd had three children Michelle, Rikki (and another little boy Joel who died) We had no money at all but loved being a proper family. We were not conventional parents as we made everything up we went along. We had three simple rules for the kids as they are up. 

1) Only do what's safe. 

2) Only do what's legal 

3) Don't do anything that will affect our family reputation.     

In terms of 'traditional roles' I ended up more of a "dad type person" as I'd not had a mum to learn from. Steve was more of a "mum type" as his dad died when he was a baby so he'd never had one.  He was great at home, cooking,  fussing and sorting problems. I felt proud doing well at work and generating income. We both enjoyed having fun with the kids. We did lots of things together during family time. Theme parks, art galleries, walking dogs, spontaneous  holidays . Our way worked for us,

Personal Time - Although we were great friends we were totally different. We had very little in common at all!  Steve loved being at home, watching films, TV, shopping, driving round the countryside for the hell of it, volunteering for charities, toy trains, antique shops and auctions. None of that was for me!  I loved horse-riding, running, working out at the gym, singing, dancing, opera, theatre,  photography, travel, making dolls houses, pubbing and clubbing. All those things filled Steve with horror so we did our own things separately. It worked, we never moaned or argued  - unless he tried to drag me along to an antique fair or I booked him an opera ticket or tried to make him sing karaoke in a pub. The things we had in common we did together during our family time. 

I'm so grateful we did life this way, There were times I wished he'd come to the gym or opera and he tried one or twice - but it was his idea of torture. I felt exactly the same being dragged round shops or antique fairs which I loathed. for us it was best to respect our differences. After all that was why we found each other interesting, We liked to hear about what we'd been up to.   Without Steve now I still enjoy the things I've always enjoyed. Would it work for others people? I really don't know as every relationship is different.