Editor’s Note: Remember the good old days of blogging? We do. Quite a few writers and editors who have passed through Tweetspeak’s doors (or are still here) first began as personal bloggers. I still do blog, though not as often as when I started. Many of my fellow writers have let their blogs go dormant, changed directions towards a professional aim, or deleted their blogs altogether. So, there’s a whole stack of intriguing, inspiring, sometimes humorous material that’s just sitting in the dark. The Life Notes column is dedicated to bringing that material to light. Because, after all, each of us comes from the stories that made us. And these stories often shine in the retelling.
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A Megan Willome blog post, May 3, 2017
The Secret to a Happy Marriage Is Not What I Thought It Was
Next month my husband and I will celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary. That means that for a quarter of a century, I have insisted that the secret to a happy marriage is … separate bathrooms.
For all but our first three years as a married couple, we maintained separate bathrooms. (Why did we share during those first three years? Was it wedded bliss? No, rather that our first two apartments had only one bathroom.)
As soon as we moved into a place with two bathrooms, I took over one of them. And thus it has stayed — through moves, through pregnancies, through children, and through two houses with tiny master bathrooms, the kind we could only share if one person stood at the sink and one sat on the toilet. There is such a thing as too much togetherness.
And then we bought a new house. Built in 1999, it’s the newest we’ve owned. This master bathroom is, in a word, vast. There are two sinks (please applaud). Not only could one person stand and the other sit, but one person could do a cartwheel while the other shaves. Have I tested this theory? Has my husband done a cartwheel while I shaved my legs?
What happens in the bathroom stays in the bathroom.
Two months into this new level of cohabitation, we’re adjusting. We’ve lived together long enough and endured sufficient crises to rise to meet this new challenge. Okay, it might be that after twenty-five years we’re set in our ways. We shower at different times — him, before work; me, after exercising. The only time we get ready simultaneously occurs before church. Although, to be fair, I have discovered a privacy option: a walk-in closet.
This is another luxury we have not previously enjoyed, except during our first year of marriage, when the only apartment available was a unit built for wheelchair accessibility. But this closet dwarfs that one. It’s so big we moved in our dresser. Because we could, that’s why.
One of the dogs claimed the corner under the built-ins as her den. Heck, both dogs could co-camp in there. They’re only terriers, after all, but I bet we could get two Labs in this closet. Then there would be no room for our shoes. However, if we had Labs, they might eat all our shoes. So, no Labs, safe shoes, happy terriers.
I have seen bathrooms and closets bigger than ours in the pages of the WACOAN magazine. I have interviewed homeowners for those pages with grander porcelain palaces. Some of those have not only two sinks, a shower, a toilet, and space for cartwheeling, but also a tub.
Our master bathroom lacks this amenity. If I want to take a bath, I have to walk to the other side of the house, to the guest bathroom. In which I have already taken over a drawer and part of a cabinet. Because some days, even in the midst of halcyon marital harmony, you still need your own bathroom.
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Photo by Katherine McAdoo, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome, author of The Joy of Poetry.
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“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is an unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”
—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro
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Rick Maxson says
I smiled ear to ear when I read this Megan. My wife and I have had separate bathrooms our entire marriage, even when we lived in a house with one of those drive through bathrooms, the one with a giant sequoia next to the shower.
We have always maintained that it is the secret to a happy marriage. On the occasion that conversation gets so personal, we’ve been asked if we miss sharing and we just laugh. Having shared a standard with 7 children and 2 adults a 3 bedroom house with one bathroom, I relish not sharing.
Thank you for sharing this story. There is much to be said about closets too. (I have a personal story on this one.).
Megan Willome says
Glad to know I’m in good company, Rick.
Sandra Heska King says
This is the first time in forever we’ve shared a bathroom, because it, too, is vast–big counter, two sinks, Roman tub, separate shower– and a pocket door to the toilet area. There’s the shhh issue when one of us gets up earliest or goes to bed latest or in the middle of the night where before we had to descend a flight (and even two flights) of stairs. But we are adapting. The only place for the litter box, though, is under the built-in, and Kobe is not real good about dusting off his feet, so our floor is usually gritty. It’s kind of like walking on the beach…
Megan Willome says
I have been known to walk to the other bathroom on the opposite side of the house in the middle of the night.
Sandra Heska King says
I’m not *that* nice. 😉
Diana Trautwein says
For the first time in 50 years, I have a separate bathroom in our downsize-home. Bliss!!
Megan Willome says
I love that the separate bathroom is a result of the downsizing.
Bethany R. says
Now I’m imagining the cartwheel-while-the-other-successfully-shaves combo. 🙂 Fun Friday post, thanks for this.
Megan Willome says
🙂
Donba says
Lol!!! I love this, and what do ya know? I am spending an awful lot of time in the ‘not’ master bath, too… which has two sinks, too….. I hadn’t realized it until just now, but I am living my OWN bathroom! Ha ha. The things a really great story can make you see! Thanks Megan!
Megan Willome says
Thank you so much!
Sharon A Gibbs says
My husband and I share a massive master bath and walk-in closet. Our lab curls in the corner of the closet under the hems of Andy’s shirts with her chin on his Nikes. Thank goodness she is not a chewer! Never has been. We ready for work at the same time in our bathroom of double sinks, separate shower and Jaczuzzi tub, This shared time and space is filled with laughter and levity as we open our day, before the day unfolds its frustrations before us.
Sharon A Gibbs says
Correction… our Lab
Megan Willome says
Sharon, y’all are truly a unique couple. What a gift.
(I didn’t know the proper capitalization of Lab for years. It has to do with whether the name derives from a place, like a country or a city or a region. In this case, the region of Labrador in Canada.)