by August Aurora James

Created on: February 23, 2009   Last Updated: March 09, 2009

I have been married for seven months, and with the honey moon phase beginning to slowly fade, I'm beginning to think more about my marriage: why it makes me happy, why its good, how it can become better. What makes a marriage a great union? Obvious things aside, things like honesty, commitment, and trust, what compiles an amazing marriage?

Marriage was something non-existent on a list of things I'd wanted to try in life. It wasn't that I openly avoided it, rather it was a notion shrouded in mystery to me. In fact, of my four sisters I was the last to marry, and ironically I am (unanimously agreed upon) the most romantically idealistic; and maybe it was for that reason exactly: isn't marriage really the most effective way to kill romance? All I knew of marriage consisted of conversations about bills and the news between my parents when I was a little girl, and complaints from my sisters, sometimes funny, other times truly heartbreaking, about their husbands being, "completely and totally brain-dead" and "emotionally handicapped." Also, my seemingly unrealistic expectations, even to myself, in what a marriage should be and provide an individual also fed more fuel to the fire that was my fear of it. I was absolutely certain I would never find exactly what i was looking for in a mate, so I shunned the idea entirely. I didn't want to end up disappointed, hurt, unhappy, or worst of all, with a broken heart.

When I met my husband, he was working nights. Because of conflicting schedules we hardly met for a face-to-face date, keeping up a daily phone relationship instead. We began talking casually, but within a week we were talking for three to four hours on end each day. I become fond of speaking to him as he worked, of hearing him speak to customers interrupting our conversations from time-to-time, regulars that were obviously so fond of him. Old women would stop by, he'd joke with them, attempting to make them, and myself on the line, laugh. I learned so much about him by talking to him in one of his most natural environments; i knew he was being exactly who he was, and i think that is what i found most intriguing about him. I'd never met anyone who spoke as straghtforward and honest as he did, with no hidden meanings, using words to describe exactly what he meant. He was the most interesting person I'd ever spoken with: our insights and beliefs were so alike, and when they weren't he would explain his thoughts with such persuasion, such intelligence and care to

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