I was watching How I Met Your Mother once, and Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris) was doling out one of his supposedly-silly nuggets of relationship knowledge. He was predicting the eventual demise of Ted and Robin’s relationship and he said:*

“There are only seven known relationship exit points: six hours, four days, three weeks, seven months, a year and a half, 18 years, and life.”

When my parents got divorced, they’d been together exactly 18 years. Later, when her brother got divorced, my mom pointed out the coincidence that he’d also been with his wife for exactly 18 years. She said that she knew of several other couples who had broken up at around the 18 year mark, and said, “There must just be something about that amount of time that leads to trouble.”

When my mother agrees with Barney I take that as a sacred truth.

We just heard that friends-of-friends of ours are getting a divorce, after 18 years of being together. Their story is much like ours — met in university, been together forever, have three small children. We have other friends who are divorced, but they all went through their divorces before we actually met them. This couple is the first in our circle that we’ve known for years to split up. My heart is just broken for them — I have no idea how to help but I know they have a hard road ahead and they are in for some sad times. I just want to give them all a big hug and then magically transport them five years into the future when everything will be settled and done and there will be new routines and a new life and everything will be livable, if not exactly happy.

Also, I just cannot imagine being a single parent to three little kids. My mother was a single parent and every day my respect for her grows. Sure, there were rough times, but she did manage to bring all four (4!) of her daughters to adulthood with almost no help and no time off (we didn’t even go to my dad’s for visitation weekends). I just can’t imagine the stress and pressure involved in doing that job alone.

Last night Sir Monkeypants came home from work early and immediately started playing with the kids and helping to get them ready for bed. After he put Little Miss Sunshine down for the night, he spent an hour with the older two kids playing a new game he invented called, “Remove your socks and throw them at each other.” Later pants and pillows also got involved. The older kids were screaming with laughter and there was just so much fun and joy in the house and I marveled at how incredibly lucky I am to have landed a guy who is such a good father. When we got married, having kids was the last thing on my mind, but now that we have the little ones, I’m amazed and delighted all over again to discover what a great guy Sir Monkeypants is. He’s a fully involved parent, a great caregiver to the kids and someone they adore.

Sure, we have rough times and we argue. But there’s nothing better than a guy who actually races home at the end of the day so he can see his wife and kids. That’s awesome, in every sense of the word.

Sir Monkeypants and I passed our 18 year mark this past spring — six years of dating followed by 12 years of marriage. I’d like to say that we’re safe now, in it for life, but I don’t think I can take that for granted. Anything can happen, and I really don’t feel like I have any magical answers as to what makes for a guaranteed happy marriage.

But we’re really happy, right now, and I couldn’t be more thankful.

* I searched high and low online for this quote, but I couldn’t find it, so my version above is not verbatim. I’m pretty sure about the “18 years, and life” parts, but the other timelines might not be exactly as stated by Barney. If anyone knows/finds the real quote, I’d love to know what it is.

[Edited to add] My adorable husband found the exact quote after about 30 seconds of googling. In fact, he found more than one link to it. Now he’s afraid our children will grow up with poor googling skills. Anyway, you can view the full quote from the show here. I was off on a couple of the exit points originally, but I’ve edited this post to include the correct exit timelines above.