Twenty-Four

The other day, I had an interesting experience. I was at the gym, waiting for a friend to get dressed, when I had this discussion with a random guy about Bitcoin. At some point in the discussion, I mentioned that I don’t really handle the financial side of the household and that my wife takes care of this. So Random Guy looks at me intensely, raises his eyebrow and pointedly says: “… but … do you trust your wife? " For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. So he followed up with: “Do you really trust her?” I burst out laughing. He looked at me very funnily. I tried to explain how absurd I thought that question was. I could tell I wasn’t getting the point across.

You see, today my wife and me have been together for 24 years. I am 42 years old. Those numbers give maybe an idea how much of an investment — or maybe how much sunk cost — is involved. But it can’t adequately explain the sheer love and trust all of this time together has accrued. As I’ve pointed out previously, I think our relationship is fairly unique in that we’ve grown even more attached to each other, the longer we’ve been together. Just from observing society in general, the opposite usually seems to be the case for most people. And this closeness naturally brings trust. When you have spent so much time together, do everything you care about together, and — more importantly — when you have learned to give the other space and not be jealous of the fun they have on their own, how can you not trust each other? Money really is the last thing I would worry about in a relationship. If that’s where your trust in your partner falls apart, it’s not only time to re-evaluate your relationship, you should also re-evaluate all of your life choices.

But maybe the guy simply failed to understand because I said “my wife”. That was kind of a generic term you use, but of course, it doesn’t really characterise my relationship with Katy. The day we married was great, but it didn’t change our relationship at all. It was a signal for everyone else, but didn’t change how we think about each other. Saying “my wife” when talking to random strangers is better than “my girlfriend” in that it better approaches what our actual relationship is like, but it obviously will not make someone who doesn’t know us understand anything. What that guy thinks a relationship to your wife is like probably has nothing to do with how Katy and I live together.

Katy is so much more than my wife. She is my best friend and the person I love the most out of all the people in the world. She’s my partner in crime, my harshest critic and the one person I can always depend on — no matter what happens. She will always have my back, unconditionally. She’s the person I trust the most, the person I’m proudest of and the person I like to spent time with the most. She’s the person I’m most comfortable with. I can tell her everything. She’s seen me in the most vulnerable situations. She’s seen the ugliest sides of me. And she’s never turned away. She is the person I can fight with the best and yet I still love her. There’s nothing that makes me happier than when she smiles. I know this sounds like the corniest, made-up shot you ever heard. But what can I say … it’s true.

And all of this is why I can’t even begin to describe how ludicrous and funny it was to me when that guy asked me, seriously, if I trust my wife. After 24 years, I think I can honestly say that most days, I trust my wife more than I trust myself. And I feel this is something that transcends love at this point. I don’t know what it is. She quite often says it might be Stockholm syndrome. I really couldn’t care less what it is. All that I can say is that I like it.