Spouses: Here's the Story....

On the occasion, someone will ask me why I call my Spouse “Spouse”.  Today is a perfect day to share!

It all started seventeen short years ago, on March 16, 1996 in a little country church in Florida and two very young & blissfully ignorant individuals. You can read a little more about that in last year’s anniversary post here. 

(I just read it. It's way better than this one, & it wasn't written on I-10. Yes. It's a glamorous life.)

So, we had this wedding. It was small and very cheesy by today’s Pinterest standards. I loved my dress. Our cake was the coolest: individual, stand-alone tiers topped with dolphins in lieu of those little dolls or chubby little Precious Moments people. We were all about simple. Less is more. I had two of my (still) very best friends on the earth stand up with me and that was that.

The wedding was fun, the honeymoon was grand and then it was over.

Then.

Then came all that name-change paperwork: Social Security, Driver’s License, utilities, bank, HR at work, etc.

A bunch of hassle. There wasn’t all this online “Edit Your Profile” jazz. This was “Complete this section in blue or black ink” kind of jazz.

“Your name. Spouse’s name”.

“Your name. Spouse’s name”.

“Your name. Spouse’s name”.

Over and over.

Somewhere along the way, the joke was, “Look. You are just the ‘second line’. The spouse.” It was in good fun and not at all disrespectful. So, it just stuck. We referred to one another as “Spouse”.

Lest we keep a term of endearment to ourselves, our friends started calling Mark “Spouse”, too! Too fun.

Well, why stop there?

Our people called us “The Spouses”.

A few years ago, I found myself offering quite the bit of unsolicited marriage advice. :) (All in the name of love and fun.) Spouse would share his two rules for woman-care: “Never let ‘em get tired or hungry.” (All in the name of love and man.)

These little nuggets would become known as “Spouseisms”, which you are reading!

So, there it is.

And, I'd do it again.
The cheesy wedding. The cake. The dress.
The Spouse.

Do y’all have any cutesy names?