My friend, who always asks poignant timely questions, requested her facebook friends weigh in on our definitions of compromise.  It’s been my experience that whenever you’re questioning compromise, you’re grappling with the core values of your life.  I instinctively responded to her post, “Giving in without giving up yourself in the process.”

Compromise (Photo from www.calbuzz.com)

Several responses later my friend interjected into the threaded discussion, “If you don’t compromise, does it mean you are selfish deep down?”

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‘Tis the season – for gifting.  Gift giving was always something in my relationships – romantic and otherwise – I looked forward to.  Not necessarily because I was lacking “things,” but because I was curious to see what “things” my special people thought most appropriate for me.  It was an unspoken way of quoting the significance of each other in our lives, of better understanding our roles in relationship to each other, of making value tangible.

Hate Your Gift??? (Photo from www.lovelyish.com)

That all went out the window with my husband.

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I’m on vacation, sort of…

Unplugged or Not! (Photo from www.crresearch.com)

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For the longest time, before my husband was my husband and up until about six months ago, he and I had a relationship full of alone time.  We started off long distance, when missing each other constantly was a way of life.  When he moved to Vegas, we transitioned from nothing to everything as he set up work and re-established himself in his hometown.  Then, it was a nonstop changing schedule for years, up through our first year of marriage.  We had very few days off together, which had its ups and downs:  we bickered because we missed each other, we were productive in each other’s absences;  our time together was rare and special.  Recently, we shared a stretch where for the first time – ever – we were truly on the same schedule:  early mornings with alarms before 5 a.m., early to bed, weekends off but busy with errands and preparations for the week ahead.  Outside of work we were together.

Some Time Alone (Photo from www.datingish.com)

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Team Collins.

I had to change my name when we got married because we had to be Team Collins.

Team Collins (Photo from www.authentictitansfanshop.com)

I loved my husband, but at the time, I loved my last name equally as much.  For lots of reasons:  it signified my family heritage, most of my friends called me by it, all that I had been and worked to become was wrapped up in that name.  I knew the world as a Tegano.

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One of the reasons I felt very good about marrying my husband was that I believed we would have an equal marriage, one where we both gave and received in equal proportion to each other.  I do, you do, we do.  My turn, your turn.  Yes, this was a preoccupation of mine because I was petrified of somehow losing myself or giving up parts of myself to move from “me” to “we”.  Consequently, prior to saying, “I do,” we shared innumerable conversations about roles and responsibilities, supporting each others’ goals, even one day down the road envisioning how we would each contribute to raising our children.  We were clearly on the same page with shared intentions and a common understanding of each others’ expectations for ourselves – if not completely – mostly.

Be Generous with Your Time (Photo from www.fbcg.com)

However, as the reality of different work schedules and commitments, varying interests and personal goals has set in, I have had to wonder if equality in marriage is really possible?

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In light of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be timely to draw a connection between the concept of gratitude and marriage.  Busy week, so I was backed up against the late Saturday hours doing research-lite:  30 minutes of solid googling.  I came across an abundance of self-helpy rambling articles on keeping journals and using daily positive affirmations of gratitude – all of which sounded good and great and wholly unoriginal.

Cultivating Gratitude (Photo from www.zoeandthebeatles.wordpress.com)

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I have many gifts.  Cleaning is not one of them.  This doesn’t mean I don’t like a clean house.  I just don’t like to do it.  In my reality, this is why cleaning services exist.  In my husband’s reality, you do it yourself.  What happens when your realities clash?  Is it possible to love and honor your partner without cleaning the toilet bowl yourself?

Making Sexy Work While Cleaning - NOT! (Photo from www.sexymaidoutfit.net)

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It’s Saturday night around eleven o’clock.  We live in Las Vegas.  It’s Halloween weekend.  We’re under 30 and the only major responsibilities we have are to pay the mortgage and remembering to feed the dog.  The possibilities are endless – right?

Welcome to Jeanine's World (Photo from www.lasvegastvshow.com)

So guess where I am…

Nope – not roaming the Las Vegas Strip decked out in Halloween regalia.  I am at home, a solid 20 minutes away from the Strip, on my couch with the laptop aglow.  Dog passed out on my leg, husband passed out up in bed.

If you had asked me how this Saturday night was going to unfold, I would have answered something different.  Actually, if you had asked me where I would be living and how I would be spending my time, I would have answered something different.  If you would have asked me to describe the man of my dreams, I would have answered with a description that doesn’t quite match up to the man I ultimately married.  In other words – this night, my life and even my man are not quite what I imagined they’d be.

At times, those realizations have left me utterly confused and deeply disappointed.  Years of expectations rooted in my wandering imagination had not been met.  How could I be anything but let down?  And in other moments, moments less clouded with the fairy tale expectations of an immature girl, the reality of my life and all the people and happenings in it stirs a deep sense of joy and gratitude within me.  How is it that the same realizations can evoke such different feelings in one person?

Our big plans for the night were abandoned due to exhaustion from hectic workweeks.  (Who knew committing to your career would be so exhilarating and draining?)  I live in my hometown, a city I’d have placed big money on my leaving, and I spend my time teaching dance to high school kids when I was sure I was destined for law school and a career in politics.  (Turns out dance and kids are way more fun!)  I’m married to a man I met in the ninth grade and re-friended again in college.  He isn’t famous or especially wealthy.  He didn’t set the world on fire with an ingenious invention.  What’s worse – I haven’t either.  He’s simply my most favorite person.

In short, this holiday night out that never was mirrors the somewhat ordinary path I seem to be forging in my life.  It’s all so not where I thought I’d be or who I thought I’d be with or who I thought I’d end up becoming.

Which really makes me wonder:  Why am I so indescribably happy about it all?

“Jeanine”, my husband calls for me from upstairs.  “It’s 11:40 – come up to bed.”

“I’m writing”, I yell back.  “I’ll be up soon.”

“Okay, love you.”

I smile.  I love him too.

And somehow loving him grounds me in the reality that all the pretty awesome things I didn’t imagine that make up my real life are the reasons I am so happy.  My husband has often said to me in my moments of indecision and revision:  you can do anything but you can’t do everything but you still have to do something.

Perhaps it’s in choosing those somethings, the choices you make, that you find your happy ending – even if it’s an ending you didn’t quite imagine.

Jeanine Tegano Collins is a dreamer and lover of all things impossible and magical… sometimes making the normalcies of day-to-day life less than enthralling.  Thankfully, she has a loving husband who reminds her of the virtues of reality.  To understand the space between the fairy tale and reality – of life and marriage – she writes.  When she’s not writing, Jeanine is busy dancing with her high school students.  Check back every Monday for life after honeymoon and follow Jeanine on twitter or friend her on facebook.