Last night while having dinner with a friend I used to date, at a restaurant I used to frequent with my former fiancé, while texting with another friend I dated, and discussing current crushes, I realized my husband is a saint. There was time in my life that people would easily identify me as “boy crazy.” They wouldn’t be wrong. In fact, one of my earliest memories is when a classmate brought me back Puka shells from his family’s Hawaiian vacation and I thought this was the start of an epic romance. I was four. There has never been a time in my life that I wasn’t pining over someone, or multiple someones, until I met the man I’m now married to.
I’ve been married about nine months, which makes me a newlywed. In addition to the typical, “when are you going to start making babies?” question newlyweds are often asked, I’d say the second most-asked question would be: “does married life feel any different?” And the answer is yes, but in very subtle ways. For me, the biggest difference is this feeling of stability and security. But, I’ll be honest, a lot of that stability comes from the fact that I’m not constantly thinking about boys. It’s like I’ve given my brain some free space to focus on other things. Or so I thought.
Here’s the thing I didn’t realize with marriage: there’s not a magic button that makes attraction to other people suddenly go away. You can still fall into flirty interactions with exes or new crushes. This is normal… apparently. When I tell my husband about my crushes (and yes, I do tell my husband), his response is that of nonchalance and a mandate to “not make out with them.” Obviously. And this is why my husband is so wonderful — he’s not trying to change me or shame me or guilt me for having flirty feelings towards people that aren’t him, he’s just making it clear that my choices and subsequent actions don’t involve anything more than the fantasy. My husband and our life together is my reality, and one of which I’m very invested in protecting. And that’s the difference between a crush and a real relationship: one is real and one is just “what if.”
Which is why I’m very grateful to be a writer. I can make the wrong choices through my characters. Allow them to explore the “what if’s” and “what might be’s”, while I make the right choices for myself. It’s a tightrope walk and it’s much easier and safer to see characters fall off that tightrope.
At the end of the day, that’s all marriage is: a constant choice to be with that person. And every day, when I wake up next to my amazing husband, I feel certain I made the right choice to marry him. And I will continue to make that choice every day for the rest of my life. I mean, what other man would offer solid advice to their boy-crazy wife? Not many.
So, to my past loves and future crushes: I will continue to flirt with you, but I will never make out with you.
Originally posted on Medium