Traci and I met early in our senior year, and not only did we each feel an immediate attraction that grew into a strong friendship, but we also helped each other career-wise. As a business major, I knew career opportunities existed for talented writers to work in advertising, and as an English and Creative Writing major, she knew that for all-around success in any field, one needed strong communication skills. We took a creative writing class together our final semester, often working in the same group, editing drafts and providing feedback. I lean on that practice and that learning every day in my job.
Fast forward five years, and Traci's career in advertising was fulfilling and enjoyable, and yet still afforded her time to pursue personal goals such as publishing short stories and working on a longer novel she sketched out a few years ago. My focus in operations led to a warehousing job, which led to opportunities in inventory management, which I really enjoy.
Our relationship only grew stronger as well. Serious squabbles in our five married years are extremely few: I recall three that I would consider to be real fights that took intentional effort to work through later. The most important one of those involved married friends, slightly older than us, where the woman had asked her hubby for a hall pass, citing some deep anxiety about their decision to start having children, and the imminent major changes a first child would have on them.
The hubby, Jeff, could not believe his wife of seven years would even consider cheating on him, while his wife lobbied that making a request in advance and asking permission precluded it from being cheating. Jeff spent four days on a friend's couch, and their marriage faltered, but through counseling and time, they managed to right the ship and save their relationship. Jeff demanded a post-nup to protect himself against "undeclared" infidelity in the future. Their friends, Traci and I included, largely fell into two camps by gender, with men thinking it preposterous, and woman feeling it excusable since it was communicated openly and in advance.
As expected, this disruption in the marriage force of close friends instigated several raucous discussions when others in the friend group gathered, but we managed to keep it civil. One guy even shared that an almost identical conversation arose with nearly 20 others while he was at a convention. Traci and I always continued talking once home, and essentially agreed to disagree. I could not convince her that cheating was simply cheating, and she could not convince me that merely asking for a hall pass was just cause for such serious and almost permanent consequences.
