Yeah, it's wierd, but we were both in a curious set of circumstances. We had both been through life's grinder and just weren't able to get ahead no matter what we tried. Neither one of us was particularly looking for marriage. We lived together and saw no need to change things except for a few advantages like being able to take care of each other's business if one was unable to (like bill collectors, etc.). I had lawyer's bills to pay, he was in the middle of a fight with a bank and we were both sinking fast. To top it all off, the house we were in got sold and the new owner evicted everyone. Having been friends for 15 years and knocking boots for the last two, we started seeing it as a financial battle. We had to survive and it felt like the world was trying to ensure we didn't. (Because we both had jobs, welfare wouldn't touch us. We tried. We made not enough to live on but too much for assistance.)
We both worked in the high tech industry and got to see what corporations were doing to survive (the "dot-bomb" had just gone off). We got to see what worked and what didn't. We started joking about marriage being a corporation, and that's what gave me the idea of the "Relationship Resume". Once we approached the thing as a business venture, we started looking at things differently. We had 'meetings' as a psychological tool. It made sure we stayed on topic and got us to thinking of long-term planning. What was our five-year plan? Our ten year plan? Who would handle the money (essentially, be the CFO)? Who would handle logistics (shopping, maintenance, errands, dealing with bill collectors, etc.)? (I know what you're thinking. My god. They won't have kids. They'll have 'employees'. If they adopt, they'll have a 'contractor'...)
The way we handled things kept us in reality. We were merging two entities, "Me" and "Him", into one entity, "Us". There was none of the fairy tale illusions that tore apart some of our friends' marriages, and maybe we were subconciously trying to avoid that by basing things in something that was happening all around us as opposed to the flowery romantic imagery that normally accompanies a marriage and vanishes into beer guts, bathrobes, and hair-curlers as soon as the honeymoon is over.
That's not to say we don't do things other married couples do. We celebrate our anniversary at a nice restaurant. We have barbecues and invite friends and family. He remembers my birthday, but only because the following weekend is the weekend he goes off with his buddies to the NHRA drag races (he warned me about that...) And no, we don't need to make an appointment to 'knock boots'
. But as money is the number one cause of divorce (can't remember what group did that study), we've protected ourselves as much as possible from that threat by handling things like a business. We've been in the red more than a few times since getting married (things are tough all over), but rather than sit and worry and fuss about things, we examined the finances, looked for our best strategy to get back in the black, shifted our budgets, and what could have been a huge fight in another couple became just another 'meeting' for us.
It's certainly not an approach for everybody, especially if you only see corporations as soulless, money-sucking greed factories. (Granted, it's hard not to.) But it worked for us because we both worked in it and could relate to it. Within 1 year of marriage we got ourselves completely out of a combined debt of something close to $15,000 without having to use a debt-consolidation company. We've turned our credit scores around from "abyssmal" to "okay", and, here at the start of our fifth year, we are four months away from signing the final paperwork on our five year plan of buying a chunk of land to call ours (complete with mineral and timber rights).
I guess what my boss told me was true: "Marry the right person. This one act will determine 99% of your success and happiness."
