(LSM-wapo) One evening in 1992, my husband-to-be and I were at an Italian café in Pittsburgh, sipping wine and falling in love. "I really want to travel," I said. "Me, too," he said. "I want to live near the ocean," he said. "Me, too," I said. "I don't care about money, I just want happiness," he said. "Me, too!" I said. It was a match made in heaven. But maybe if we understood the reality of marriage our conversation would have been different: "I might have a lot of stretch marks," I should've said. "That's OK, we'll just dim the lights," he might've said. "I'm going to go bald, but ironically, hair will sprout out of my ears and nose," he should've said. "I'm good with tweezers," I might've said. "I have no mechanical ability whatsoever and will feel no embarrassment if my wife handles all the home repairs," he should've said. "I won't have a problem with that for the first 10 years or so, but then I'll get really fed up," I really wish I'd said. ad_icon But back then, we weren't thinking about annoying habits, taxes and clogged drains. We were too busy planning our perfect life to be bothered with reality.

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