USA Today: "They Did It!"

I fervently wish them much more success than I enjoyed in my second marriage. 

We happily 'lived in sin' for three years or so, until after the birth of our first son, and then decided we ought to 'make it legal' for the sake of the children and 'posterity' and the tongue-wagging busybodies who make such things their primary entertainment. Big Mistake!

While we were there because we really wanted to be, not just because conventional society dictates one ought to honor one's commitments to a piece of documentation signed in front of people you hope you'll never require to be witnesses again, everything went just 'ginger-peachy' and we had a great time, for the most part. But once we became officially 'man and wife' instead of just being that sinfully romantic couple with the cute little baby, things changed.
And I'm not talking about the kid's diapers...

Where did we go wrong? I've asked myself that question about a million times,
and the only answers I get are insufficient excuses for things I can't fully explain nor perhaps even adequately comprehend. Simply put, I just don't know. And I
once thought I knew just about everything about anything. Obviously, I didn't know much about a lot of the things I should have done more 'homework' on,
and asked more questions about, instead of 'assuming' or 'jumping to conclusions'. 

In the beginning, because we both came from divergent and colorful backgrounds, and there was a not inconsequential age difference, we had a deal; once each day, for just a few minutes, we'd take a break from whatever we were doing, and we'd sit down with a coffee or a soda, and ask each other one simple question: "How am I doing today?" And we promised each other to be brutally frank and honest with our answers, so that we could make adjustments if and when required. And it worked out quite well, for as long as we took it seriously and continued doing it. It wasn't until we got overconfident and careless and neglectful of our deal that trouble reared its ugly head amid our formerly placid relationship, and as they say, "the mung hit the fan".
And there's a moral there someplace, if we look for it, I'm fairly sure.