The Other Man in my Life

With all due respect to the "other" man in my life, I felt I should talk a little about my husband, Matthew. He is 17 years my junior. Ok, now before you start with whatever "cougar" jokes or "cradle robbing" jokes or " you're old enough to be his mom" jokes, you can stop. I have heard most of them. It's ok. I can take it. One good thing about a 45 year old woman who is married to a 28 year old man....she knows she looks old enough to be his mother. She knows she looks like she is robbing the cradle. She knows, ok? But in my defense, how many women do you know who have the moxie to even consider dating a man that much younger, much less marrying him?

But we are a good match. Seriously. He is more mature than I am in most areas. I have not really grown up. I think childless adults never really have to grow up so in many cases, they don't. I am one of those. I believe that saying, "growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional". That's me to a T.

Matt is a kind, considerate, albeit sometimes moody wonderful person. He loves me in spite of my terribly goofy, sometimes horribly hormonal, workaholic, never-want-to-leave home, put-the-ranch and Dad-before-everything else self. And more than that, he seems to "get" me. Not always, but for the most part, he gets what it is I am about. There aren't a lot of people on this earth that I can say that about. But above all, Matt makes me feel safe. And there are even less people on this earth that I can say that about. I would like to come off to people like I am this tougher than nails woman, who can man handle anything that gets in her way. And while I am extremely capable, I am not always that person. And Matt accepts me. Whichever person I am that day.

He is a diesel mechanic, which, if you know anything about ranching, stuff is always breaking down. So a very un-mechanical person like me is wise to have someone like Matt who can fix stuff. But he's also very good with a horse and a cow and likes working with and using tractors, which I hate. He grew up helping his grandad on his ranch and also worked for other ranchers after school and during the summer. At night, Matt works on locomotives at the railroad in North Platte about 40 miles from our ranch. So he wears lots of hats. Not every guy in the world could handle that, but I'm glad he does.