Tomorrow is my 20th wedding anniversary to my lovely and amazing wife, Tuesday. She is amazing and since this anniversary is divisible by 5, it is special. Anyway… I am devoting these 20 Questions to be all about “20 Years of Marriage.”

Thanks this week go to: Nicole, Erin, Bruce, Nadolny, Matt, Lsig, some other guy, and the Wife.

Without further ado… here come the questions!

1. What is your advice for maintaining a healthy relationship?
Communication… and that weird gluten free strawberry cake thing from Fresh Thyme.

2. What was your favorite anniversary celebration?
For our 5th anniversary we went to London for a week and did the touristy stuff as well as seeing the Lion King at the Lycium in the West End. I also saw the ugliest baby ever there... it was in a pram, and it was hideous enough that I woke my violently ill wife to tell her what I saw.

3. Do you follow the "anniversary gift progression"? ... 5th Wood, 10th Tin, 15th Crystal, 20th China, 25th Silver, 30th Pearl, etc.
We are very atypical that way. For example, for our 20th we have decided to go with shoes. We honor tradition by eschewing it. Fluevogs for 20, bitches!

4. Ever forgotten your anniversary? Has she?
Funny story, for the longest time my wife couldn’t remember the day of our anniversary. I finally told her a mnemonic for it about 8 years ago and she finally started remembering it consistently. That being said, I do not think that either of us have ever actually missed an anniversary.

5. Mawwiage…

Wuv, twoo wuv...

6. What is your favorite meal she makes for you?
She is a baker more than a cook, so I would go with her Lemon Tart or Lemon Curd doughnuts.

7. What is the thing that you cook that she could do without?
Orange Rice… truth be told we both don’t like Orange Rice anymore, and she makes it as well. The kids still eat the hell out of it.

8. Would you have bet on yourself to make it 20 years, if there had been a wager?
I am not sure I would have made that bet at that time. I knew we had a solid 10 in us though.

9. What advice would you give your newlywed self if you could pull him aside?
Grow up and pull your weight.

10. How have your fights/disagreements changed over the decades?
We now know that many of the fights we are/were getting into are/were about deep internal patterns that are manifesting as conflict between us. Early on we would have just thought the other one was doing it on purpose.

11. Can you point to any specific thing(s) that you like or dislike solely from your spouse's influence? (I now try to catch all David Simon television series because of my husband's passion for The Wire).
I have an appreciation for Prince that I never would have without knowing her.

12. Assuming you are largely on the same page regarding the big stuff (money, child rearing, tv shows, etc.), was that always the case? Who had to bend more to get you to alignment?
I think we have been mostly aligned on the things you mentioned. If there were differences they were minor, like the difference between vanilla ice cream and vanilla bean ice cream. I would say that it was a give and take as to who bent more for alignment (because I think that it they were not significant bends).

13. Which year has been the hardest so far? (Year 3 was the worst).
That’s an interesting one… I actually have asked the wife for her input on this as well. It turns out we both agreed with was year 12. On the same page! Yeah, SUCKERS! Unified Front, FTW! WE BOTH AGREE THAT THE 12TH YEAR WAS THE WORST!!! WOOOOO!

14. Like us, you married quite young. In what ways have you grown up, and in what ways has she?
I think in all ways we have grown up. We were so young and dumb. So Young… so dumb. One of us more dumb… some might have said dumber.

15. What is the biggest surprise 20 years in?
That there are still surprises. I would have thought that by now we would know everything about each other, but we don’t. There are constant revelations about each other, even this far into the relationship.

16. What do you know at 20 that you did not know at 10?
Wow… I have to think back to 10 and remember something… I would say the biggest thing about 20 v 10 is that at 20, we are able to name some of the arguments, because we have been arguing them so much they are like old friends. I have named one of them Shecky... Shecky knows what he did.

17. How did 20 go by so fast?
We had kids and everything sped the fuck up. It is September already… It seems like yesterday it was 2010.

18. What was the best part of your wedding day?
This sounds corny as corny-poo, but seeing my bride walk down the aisle. After that I would say the reception was pretty killer. My wife danced until she could not feel her feet and I chatted with just about everyone. The food was killer. All in all it was an amazing day.

19. What is the most insufferably cute thing you two did during your 20 years of marriage?
Prior to having kids we would read to each other before going to bed. It continued a bit after Little Man was born. This reading aloud to each other started with the complete “Lord of the Rings” and then went to Tamera Pierce’s Tortall series. We did the Bartimaeus Trilogy (I see there is a 4th book of Barty now), The Castings Trilogy, The Bitterbynde Trilogy (don’t read this one… terribly unsatisfying end [it was really good right to the very end]), and a few standalone novels as well. Disgustingly cute. I am not really even very sure why I am writing this down. I now expect a good bit of mockter from the people in my life who mock… there are so many people in my life who mock.

20. So who do you think won in this relationship? We live in ‘Merica and here there are winners and losers. Who won, snowflake? And none of that “we both won” crap.
The winner of this contest of marriage really depends on who is asking and to whom they are asking. People who know me more than my wife feel that I am punching above my class. People who know my wife think she is amazingly lucky to have a guy like me… That being said, we all know that I won and she lost.

To recap:
I won
Boy did I win
By a landslide
My friend who had the tumor removed from his noggin is back home and resting
That is a good thing
This weekend, I went to the Mapparium
It was pretty amazing

If you are in Boston, have 15 minutes and $6 to spare, you should totally go
Ugh, reading to each other aloud?
I feel sick thinking about it
That a bit cloyingly sweet, isn’t it?
Ugh
I’m glad we aren’t doing that crap anymore
I think we did the Harry Potter books as well... Good Lord... I am disappointed in myself right now
I’m really not proud about it
Okay, maybe a little proud
To celebrate our 20th anniversary we are going to Little Man’s curriculum night
How romantic
Have a great week