<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" The first part of my title is pretty easy to decipher. But, for those of you not yet a member of the Captain Obvious Club, I&amp;#039;m talking about a penis that is opposite of the word &amp;quot;down&amp;quot;. If you still can&amp;#039;t figure it out, then your membership dues should be put toward a different organization. Try the Ignorant But Blissful Troup run by a happy but fairly slow administration. I&amp;#039;m not worried about offending any of you with that last statement because the fact that you are actually reading this makes you ineligible to join.  The second part of my title is not as easy to figure out. I&amp;#039;m referring to harmony within two people, whether it be in an office, friendship, or the case of my column \u2013 marriage. The hard part is not the fire work show, but what to do after the big light show when the smoke settles.  No matter how many people tell us that marriage is hard work, somehow we think we&amp;#039;re going to be immune to every day domestic issues. &amp;quot;Running out of diapers with no sleep and worrying about paying the mortgage? Pfshawsss! My fianc\u00E9&amp;#039; is so cute, we&amp;#039;ll just love our way on through it.&amp;quot; Yeah, right. I don&amp;#039;t care what anyone says \u2013 organic bliss is short lived. After that, it takes work. Maybe it takes less work for others for a variety of reasons ranging from compatibility to a naturally higher libido. But ultimately, one way or another, the romance changes and reality sets in.  I can&amp;#039;t presume to speak for any of you, nor am I judging any of you if your marriages didn&amp;#039;t survive some rough times. I can only say for myself that it never made sense to call it quits on Rex when things didn&amp;#039;t go as planned. Like my TV writing days, I view marriage like a sitcom: It&amp;#039;s funny, sometimes poignant, and takes countless hours to make thirty minutes appear seamless.  It&amp;#039;s also like my crappy kitchen where I&amp;#039;m painstakingly painting, peeling and sanding. It&amp;#039;s brutal, man. And yet, someone will walk in one day and say, &amp;quot;Wow! What a cute kitchen!&amp;quot; And my response will be, &amp;quot;Hey, thanks!&amp;quot; Like it was nothing. But wasn&amp;#039;t nothing. It took a lot of effort, humility at mistakes, and the ability to laugh at myself along the way. Why should my marriage be any different? If you can get through the rough spots, all of a sudden things will start running smoothly again, and it&amp;#039;ll be hard to imagine that there was ever a time you thought, &amp;quot;If I have to listen to his work stories one more time...&amp;quot; Funny thing is, like an old kitchen (and marriage) it seems the harder you work at it it, the more excited you are about the results. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re so lucky,&amp;quot; some might say. My response? &amp;quot;Oh, this old thing? Yeah, it is pretty cute, huh?&amp;quot; And if you&amp;#039;re snarky like me, you&amp;#039;ll also add, &amp;quot;I did most of the work.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a2640/its-easy-to-get-hard-but-hard/>