I don’t generally get all squishy about Valentine’s Day. I don’t hate the day, but it’s not terribly important to me. Still, because the Modern Love Machine and I are in the throes of planning our wedding, and because I made myself get absolutely, 100 percent, positively serious about crossing some things off our wedding to-do list this month, I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship and how it’s changed and grown.

Side note: You know those former brides who were really in love with planning their weddings? I know several of you readers were one of them. I, however, am not. I hate planning even the smallest of parties, so planning the largest party of my life has been, well, a bit of a pain in the ass. I am unbelievably excited about soon being married to the MLM, and I am so very much looking forward to our wedding day, but actually accomplishing the things that will make that wedding day a reality? Not the way I want to be spending my evenings and weekends.

Anyway, so the MLM and I have been living together for eight months now and have been a couple for a year and about seven months. We got engaged after 10 months of being together, and it would have surprised the crap out of the Modern Gal two years ago if you told her she’d meet the man of her dreams and get engaged within 10 months. That’s just not the speed at which I move.

Still, with that time behind us, I am still absolutely blown away at how right everything is. To this day, we’ve still never had a knock-down, drag-out fight, and I’m not sure that we ever will because it’s not our personalities. Even Noodles observed while visiting us a few weeks back that we generally just talk our way through challenges that might make other couples argue, contributing all the information we each have about the topic until finding some sort of mutual agreement. I’ve never felt so respected by a man in my life, and I hope I in turn offer him the same level of respect.

I was a little concerned about moving in together so quickly. The last stab at cohabitation (with the ex) didn’t go so well, and I guess I wanted time to mentally prepare for this time. I also kind of wanted some time to get myself settled in this house and expand the master bedroom closet to bigger than a shoebox before the MLM moved in. He convinced me otherwise, and I’m glad he did. While we’ve disagreed on paint colors and the size of the new TV, we’ve definitely created a home together — one where we share the chores and enjoy using the kitchen and watching the way too large TV and huddling together at night to stay warm between the hundred-year-old walls. I love that we won’t be stressed about forging our home together after the wedding, we can just dwell in our wedded bliss while continuing to move about our already established at-home routines. The wall painting can wait, I suppose.

I don’t talk a lot about our relationship here, because I know too much mushiness can get sickening (for me as much as for anyone). But as I reflect on our relationship and our upcoming nuptials, I’ve come to appreciate more and more how this life isn’t and shouldn’t be for everyone. I wish our society didn’t place so much pressure on everyone to seek marriage and babies. That may sound incredibly contrary coming from someone who just gushed about how wonderful soon-to-be-married life is right now and I’m having a hard time explaining myself, but I completely appreciate the fact that this is one way of life out of many possible ways of life.