15 tips to stay married for 25 years, 4 months and 9 days. Tip #2 involves pooping.

My husband and I met on January 26th, 1990 at the Atsugi Naval Base, Atsugi Japan. I was working as a photographer in Tokyo and he was working as a Naval officer stationed on the Midway.

Five days after we met I drew him a picture of what I wanted my engagement ring to look like. Four days later he shipped out.

Twenty-seven days after we met he proposed to me on the phone from a port stop.

We were married on September, 22nd, 1990 in Wayzata, Minnesota. Twenty-five years, four months and nine days later we are still married.

Fifteen Tips To Stay Married for Twenty-five Years, Four Months and Nine days.

1. Buy Expensive Tissue. When your spouse is sick in bed with a bad cough and a runny nose and they only have septic safe toilet paper to blow their nose, offer to go the store even if it is ten o’clock at night. Buy the softest tissue they have.
2. Close the bathroom door when you are pooping or peeing. And don’t walk in on your spouse when they are pooping or peeing. Keep the romance alive and keep your butt wiping private.
3. Put down your phone when you are on a date. You really can wait to find out the score for the basketball game you are missing. My husband still needs to work on this one.
4. Remember a glass on the counter by the dishwasher is just a glass on the counter by the dishwasher. I have to work on this one. Sometimes the glass on the counter feels like a personal insult.
5. Don’t talk badly about your spouse in public. Ever. Not even once. If it is a story about when they locked they keys in the car three times last week, ask if you can tell the story first.
6. Have sex frequently. When I told my husband what I was writing for number six, I said, “I could use improvement on this one. “ He said, “Yes, you could.”
7. Have sex only with your spouse. That goes for kissing too. Borrow your neighbour’s lawnmower or their carousel horse, but not their spouse.
8. Always tell the truth. If you just bought a carousel horse at an auction for six-hundred dollars, tell him the truth. And if you are the spouse that had to find a truck to pick up the carousel horse, be nice. You never know when you might buy a six-hundred dollar carousel horse and need grace.
9. Pray together. Prayer kept us together. Even after I threw a pot.
10. Keep your spouse’s secrets. Don’t tell your friends that your husband picks their nose. You want to feel safe to share your feelings with your spouse. Be trust worthy.
11. Be nice. See rule number eight about the carousel horse.
12. Listen. And when you are listening, pay attention to the other person, don’t just be waiting to tell your own story. Please, please, give your spouse a chance to explain why they bought the carousel horse.
13. Feel free to fart in front of each other. I know that might seem to go against rule number 2, the pooping rule, but holding flatulence in all day, is not easy. If this rule bothers you, then step outside or fart in the bathroom. If a fart sneaks out before they can run outside, give your spouse grace. We all have gas.
14. Don’t talk about your spouse’s feeling to other people. Three-way communication is ineffective. If someone wants to know what your spouse thinks, encourage them to ask your spouse.
15. Encourage your spouse to keep dreaming and following their passions. Life is not stagnant. We are always learning and growing. The person you married is changing, they will not be the exactly same person you married twenty-five years ago. Grow with them.

Your spouse is your friend, your lover and your biggest fan. Encourage your spouse to keep dreaming and following their passions.

Two years ago I started taking classes at the local community college. I have taken classes in Computer Graphics, Typography, and Page Layout and Design.

Last fall I made an adult coloring book, “Color The Cats — Forty Real Cats From Around The World and Their Stories,” in my Page Lay-Out and Design class.

The book was independently published on Amazon on December, 16th, 2015. 10% of all proceeds from the book go Best Friends Animal Society.

xo
Pamela

p.s. I bought the carousel horse after we had been married for about seven months. If I hadn’t been outbid on the wooden chicken I would never have bid on the horse.

p.s.s This post originally appeared on aterriblehusband.com

p.s.s.s That is me and Nick in the photograph in the receiving line after the wedding ceremony. Sabine Rocket took the photograph.