Today is the seven year anniversary of my first date with Jeremy. I just think it's amazing that we haven't killed each other yet.

If you have a significant other or spouse, how long have you been together? If you're single, how long was your longest relationship? How do you keep things exciting? Or don't you? Do you get sick of each other? Do you find yourself fantisizing about Colby from Survivor in the middle of dinner conversations?

Oops, sorry. That last one is probably just me.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

Answers

We'll have been together nine years the first week of August. How do we keep things exciting, hmmm....Well. We haven't killed each other yet either. That's exciting enough.

I've never watched "Survivor" (am I going to be Shunned from the community now?) but I have a huge crush on Rupert Everett. To date this hasn't interfered with a meal, but I'll let you now.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

My wife informed me last night as we were falling asleep that today is our 75-month anniversary. We only dated exclusively for a little more than a year, so we've been "together" just under 7 1/2 years.

We've honestly never gotten sick of each other, thank God. We keep things exciting by chasing little children around the house.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

Five years has just blown by for us. It should be noted that one of our theme songs is "Used to Love Her (but I had to kill her . . .)."

So, as long as she doesn't give me any lip, brings me back gifts from trips, and don't mind my trysts with the hot chica across the hall, we're good for another five years or so.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

This September will be 14 years we've been together, 17 years that we've known each other. I've know him more than half my life. Scary. Before him my longest relationship was 18 months. Every time. I started to think I was cursed by the third 18 month breakup.

We went through what you would expect from 14 years together. We had a few rough years around 7 and 8 and year 1 and 2 were tough as well. Now I think we're better than ever. So much so that we got married last year. He works for a company that is 24/7 so his working schedule has changed at least 10 times in 12 years. I work a 9-5'er with weekends and holidays off. Because of his schedule we have a limited amount of time to spend together and more time spent apart. I think that has kept our relationship fresh. We don't have any routines. We can't because things always have to change. He has plenty of time to be alone or go out with friends and vice versa.

O/T: I just had to add that Colby is a babe. And I do not crush easily.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

The seventh anniversary of our first date will be in September, followed 90 days later by the seventh anniversary of our cohabitation. More remarkably (to me, anyway), our first wedding anniversary is in nine days. Most remarkably of all, we're happier than ever. Even though he's not Colby. heh.

The best part of marriage, I think, is that neither of us stresses over random crushes. He's not Colby, I'm not Jeri Ryan, and that's quite alright with both of us.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

You know, I think you ladies had better stop talking about my husband Colby like that. I'm really not liking your tone. Did I just see you looking at his ass? Stop looking at his ass. That's my ass. You go look at your own husband.

Sheesh. You women.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

We've been together for about 17 years, and sometimes I think the only reason we're still together is that we had a son who's irritating enough that however irritating we are to each other pales in comparison. We concentrate on not killing him and everything else just sorts itself out.

Oh, and we're on a look-but-don't-touch system. As somebody said up above, I'm not Colby and she's not Jeri Ryan. Or Michelle Forbes. Or Nana Visitor. Have I mentioned my fixation with Star Trek Women? oooh... Nicole de Boer...

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

We've been married over 19 years now, and amazed at two things: we made it this far and how short a time it seems.

How'd we do it? I'm not really sure - we do try to give each other space, and over time we've learned to adjust our own more irritating habits, but I don't have a grand formula I can offer up.

Yes, at times we can drive each other up the wall (or drive our kids up the wall - this seems to be more frequent!) but it helps that we have both enough common interests to enjoy time together and enough separate interests to keep us from being absolutely predictable.

I can honestly say I've never fantasized about Colby, at dinner or any other time ;-) And I sincerely doubt that she has either. Nothing wrong with that if it floats your boat, though; we both subscribe to the OK-to-look philosophy, though I suspect there might be a cleaver in my future if I tried touching. I *think* that last one is a joke. Maybe.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

It's not his ass, Beth, it's his eyes. Okay, well...it's not JUST his ass.

Though we went to see the Mummy sequel tonight, and it was totally worth it for one reason. Yes, I mean Oded Fehr. (http://members.tripod.de/ofas/index.htm) Oh, man.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

two weeks.

but he never called me so i dropped him like a hot potato. no drama :)

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2001

But Brandon Fraser, and his perfect lips and his pretty, pretty eyes and that wry little smile and those shoulders and his snarky interviews and his sweet smart cuteness...that's why I'm going.

Also, because I like saying "The Rock. The ROCK is in this movie. Rock. ROCK! The ROCK!"

Anthony and I will be together for 4 years this July. 4 years. It's the longest relationship I've ever had. I love him, and he puts up with my absolute fucking insanity and my mood swings and my insistence that I am the prettiest princess that ever was and a whole host of nonsense, and for that, I will always love him.

But yeah, yeah, I get tired of him, and he gets tired of me. And sometimes I think that I would like a break, and that I deserve a break and that I would like to kiss someone else now, please. It's a new thing, this restlessness, and it's difficult to reconcile with my feelings for him, and no, it's not exciting, and hasn't been for a long time.

It's frustrating, incredibly frustrating to be torn like this.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2001

Yeah. That's a feeling I know.

Has anyone ever taken a break and had it work out for them? Ever had an affair with permission? Did you go back? Did it ruin everything?

I'm not really talking about polyamory here, because that's a lifestyle. I'm talking about something that was out of the ordinary for you.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2001

Meg's my five year break from my regular lifestyle.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2001

My ex and I were together for about a year, broke up when she went away for the summer for various reasons, and didn't get together right away when she got back. Actually, for six months we didn't talk much. Then we started hanging out again and things began to click again. We got back together for a while, until she graduated and our lives moved on. We left it at, "lets see what happens in a few years."

I dunno if that even answers your question.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2001

We've been married more than 19 years and are still best of friends and have a blast in many ways (including passion). We do enjoy spending as much time together as we can... most of the time. There are times we get tired of each other (or want to smother the other one in their sleep), or get irritable or snarky and at those times, the excitement definitely lulls. What I've seen happen for us, though, is that this all cycles through. We've gone through so many down cycles, when not only were were tired / annoyed / bored, but things in our life were also bad and conspiring to make us crazy and wanting to just get away... only to stick it out long enough to see that the cycle swings back up the other direction if we put the effort into making it do so.

(I'm not implying that everyone can simply "stick it out" and have a great marriage later. Sometimes, things just never cycle back up. But for us, we've seen the pattern, so we know it will and we usually know what's happening and what we need from each other at those times. I fall in love with him all over again so many times, it astounds me, and I have a bad character trait of being able to be completely indifferent and walk away from relationships which just do not work... so to still feel this way about him after this many years, through so much... well, it is fairly amazing.)

I think one of the biggest reliefs to our marriage was when I discovered several friends, upon discussion this, all who had (still have) good permanent relationships (some married, some not, but long-term commitments)... all of whom said that they cycle through these sorts of feelings as well. Once I saw this was normal, going through it myself didn't feel like such a death-knell that down times can feel like.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

My current relationship is only eight months strong, so of course I'm not tired of him yet. My longest relationship was with my ex-husband, seven years total - five before marriage, and two after. I was 19 when we started dating and 26 when we broke up. The year before we got married, we separated for a period of about three months. I had one purely sexual relationship during that period, and then ended up getting back together with the ex-h. Obviously that was not the right decision, as we ended up divorcing two years later. Things were not exciting, and we had little in common. He hated all my friends and resented most of what my life held. Things are better now, with a partner who supports me and the things that are important to me.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Well i've been with James Marsters for roughly two... Oh. Whoops. I mean i've been with George for over two years now, trying to plan a cheap wedding, and with the exception of the odd SPike type fantasy everything's great.

No breaks. We split up for less than a day and realized it was dumb. Hopefully that will be it. And it may work for some but not me - no permitted affairs.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Mike and I have known each other for 7 years. We've been a thing for four and married for one of those 4.

He's my best friend and sometimes I get sick of him. We work together, so sometimes I need a break from him cuz it just gets on my nerves. He's finally getting a real job though, so I'm looking forward to missing him at the end of a day.

Lately, our lives have been going through a lot of changes...we're moving to another state, to other jobs, etc., and the transition is making us both jumpy and grumpy. We seem to be jumping each other's shit a lot and then apologizing for it.

I know this is a cyclical thing and once things get settled, we'll be back to happy and serene again.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001