My husband and I sometimes argue. There, I said it. We argue sometimes. Sometimes loudly.

These aren’t marriage-ending, plate-throwing, divorce lawyer-calling arguments. Mostly, they’re just really stupid — the most recent being about whether we should watch “Vikings” or “Vanity Fair.”

Laura Elder

I fuss at him for getting into vicious, profane arguments with the navigation system in our Jeep, and he fusses at me for being unable to ignore a text. He hates the way I load the dishwasher and I have never seen anyone wreck a kitchen, while cooking, in the particular, spectacular way he does.

I used to worry when I heard couples say they never argued, never even got a little annoyed with each other. Was something wrong with us? Had an unfailing wedded bliss that others enjoyed evaded us?

But I felt better, a little relieved, after meeting the couples featured in this issue. They were honest and all agreed that enduring marriages and relationships are never easy and never without disagreements. A good marriage was a daily work in progress, with disagreements along the way, they said.

On the cover: Trish and Ron Wooten of Jamaica Beach walk by roses in the sand on Galveston’s West End. Photo by Stuart Villanueva

What really matters aren’t the fights, but that couples shared the same values and goals. And that they worked as a team to meet those goals, often through compromise.

As I wrote this, I had to think hard to remember what my husband and I argue about. But I could easily recall what mattered — that we laugh together way more than we disagree. How he makes up silly songs about our cats. How he has helped me shoulder the heavy weight of loss and grief in my life, making it a little easier to carry. And the way, every Sunday for years, he drove 90 minutes to northwest Houston to escort my father and me to breakfast, never complaining.

In April, we’ll be married 23 years. I wouldn’t change anything, except maybe, sometimes, the channel.