Thanks to...

Thinking back over the past few years, I've come to some conclusions in regards to my relationship with the Mister.

Thanks to the Mister, I never had to experience the dating world.  Now, some people think that you need to meet a lot of people to know when you've been the right one.  I was lectured on it a time or two before we got married when I was 20.  After hearing some of the horror stories of the dating world, I'm happy to be married to the first guy I hooked up with.
Is it better to stick with filet mignon after the first time you tried it?  Or should you forget about that and try t-bones, ribeyes, sirloins, sausage, and hamburger, etc to see if the filet was REALLY as good as you though it was?  And then it's too late to get the filet back because someone else is hogging it all.
That's right, I just compared the Mister to a cut of beef.

Thanks to me, the Mister didn't marry a redhead named *M.  My sister is a redhead named *M and she's batshit crazy.  I think I did him a pretty big favor.  Not that he was going to marry my sister, but from all the redhead's I've experienced who are named *M--and I've met a few...you're welcome, Mister.

Thanks to the Mister, I get to experience the kinds of things I had only read about in my romance novels.  Kisses that really do overwhelm, and gestures that make my heart rate get a little faster.  I guess since I'd never really been kissed before I met him, anything that we did was overwhelming to my little heart, but that's beside the point.  Right?  Right.  (Did I mention I never experienced the dating world?)

Thanks to me, the Mister got to realize the miracle of Hamburger Helper.  That's right, Hamburger Helper.  We were poor when we first got married and moved into our first apartment.  We could afford little in terms of fancy foods, like filet mignon.  So "gourmet" was 6 different kinds of Hamburger Helper, which he absolutely LOVED.  I grew up having the stuff for dinner--but the Mister was raised in a family where dinners were made from wholesome ingredients and nothing came out of a box.  Boy, was he missing out!

Thanks to the Mister, I know that no one could ever accept and love me better than he does.  We went through a lot to be together (re: The Beginning of Us) and I'm sure we'll have battles to survive in the future, but at least we'll face them side by side.

Thanks to me, the Mister has settled in Montana.  Before he met me, he lived in a big, populated, sky-scraper-filled city in Canada.  He grew up there and liked it, but had always wanted to live in the States.  Then he met me, and took advantage of my naiveté (hah!  more like raging hormones) and married me so he could live happily ever after.  In Montana.  Kind of.
Here he gets to live in a small town where the commute is 3 minutes instead of 3 hours (seriously, traffic in Toronto was insane), he can go hunting and fishing and golfing and do manly man things when he feels the testosteronic urge.  Ok, so he could golf and fish in Toronto, but he couldn't hunt for big game!  And he LOVES hunting for big game!  He even practices his calls during the off-season--generally in the insane hopes that I'll come to the call?  He's odd.
I won't mention how much he hates the long, cold winters (snowed in June this year) that prevent him from golfing in the spring, or the lack of things to do when he's not hunting, or...oh, wait, I'm supposed to not be mentioning these things.  Never mind.