Eight years ago today, I married the grumpy Dutchman.

We had a wee passenger on board – I was 5.5 months pregnant and you can imagine the havoc this caused when I had to tell my dressmaker and get a whole new dress designed. And yes, I walked down the ‘aisle’ barefoot and pregnant.

But aside from not being able to get happily drunk at my own wedding, being preggers had its one advantage. I can never forget how long we have married – no matter how fuzzy my brain – I simply go to my eldest boy’s next birthday and I know. He is currently 7.75 years which means that we must have been married for 8 years. That’s aaaaaages man. It feels like it took nearly that long to get used to calling him ‘my husband’. Weird.

And I know it’s a cliché but I married my best friend. My super sexy, grumpy, Dutch best friend. Sure, he forgot our very first wedding anniversary. He forgets my B’day every year (and it’s weird because it’s the same day every time). Up until last year he had to ring me every time he needed to know the lads birthdays. But he remembers other stuff. He remembers to tell me to stop talking when I’m body shaming myself. He tells my thighs and tummy to ignore me and that he loves them. He sees past my ‘I’m going to be good and not have carbs for dinner’ as the bullshit that it is – carbs aren’t ‘bad’ or ‘good’ they are just food – and feeds it to me anyway because I want it. He didn’t run away when I got pretty awkward to take anywhere that there was food and he puts up with all that shit.

He changed all the nappies when the lads were young and did all the baths with our eldest when I was irrationally afraid to do it. He cooks more than me and he usually remembers to do veges without nagging.

But. He gets naked where and when he feels like it and I find little ‘puddles’ of his clothes all over the house. He leaves his empty beer bottles EVERYWHERE. I find them in the bathroom, the lounge, the front porch, the shower. He falls asleep in random spots around the house and it is increasingly rare that we wake up in the same bed. (last night he slept on the couch with the kitten to ‘settle him in’ and don’t ask how often he sleeps with the dog). He is a night owl and I am an early bird. He doesn’t understand my thing for shoes. He has a weird thing for fake guns. He can’t remember a single password or work modern technology beyond a very basic functionality. For the first 6 or 7 years of our relationship he rang his Mum every time he got a bill, thankfully I trained him out of that….

You know the best thing though? He’s mine and I am his. And for now that is still exciting, and comfortable and the most ‘right’ thing I can think of.