How to bullet proof your relationship

[Griff]

If you really want to find out if you can spend the rest of your life with someone, design and build a house with them. I just got off the phone with an anal retentive friend who is building a house with his fiance. It turns out they both have AR tendancies and it appears they are complimentary. Pete and I on the otherhand prefer things less finished, more rough. I love to build stuff and as long as its functionally sound I could care less that its a quarter bubble off. Pete does her share, gets her input, and doesn't get bent about the little things. When you read books by people who build together you always wait for the other shoe to drop, one or the other of them made all the choices and the house becomes the individuals, not the couples. Then you get the footnote about who moved out to find themselves...

So if you think you want to spend forever with somebody do the big project and see if it blows you apart or galvanizes you.