The thing about marrying someone in the middle of life is that you make assumptions that they know what you know, simply because you’re around the same age and grew up in not completely disparate places. You imagine that you’ve had shared experiences, that you’ve watched the same TV shows or enjoyed the same foods. What feels ubiquitous to you should be familiar to him, you think.

But no. Each of you has your own history, likes and dislikes, the things you know by heart and things – like Everything bagels apparently – that you’ve never heard of.

My husband is a former professional hockey player, and he knows a lot about sports.

Sports of every season and nationality. Sports across the board. He knows the players, the stats, who’s winning and losing at any given time. Unfortunately for him I don’t care about sports at all, so that’s not something he and I can ever talk about. He tries, but my eyes glaze over almost immediately and I start thinking about what to make for dinner.

I’m a huge reader of fiction, and I love to talk about books – what I’m reading now, what I read last, what I’m planning to read next. Unfortunately for me, my husband rarely reads, and he’s never even heard of my favorite authors. When we were dating, he had a stack of books on his nightstand – something I mentioned to all my friends when they asked me about him. “He’s a big reader!” I told them. I’m convinced now those books were just a prop.

My husband can fix anything. If a table is wobbly, he flips it over, does something to it, and when he flips it back, it’s solid as a rock. I can fix nothing and wouldn’t even try. In fact, if you believe my family lore, I break things more often than fix them. There was a standing joke between my father, mother, and brother that I always broke the garage door because ONE TIME when I pressed the button it jammed, and I got blamed for it. I also cannot assemble anything when it comes out of the box. I wait until my husband gets home and silently hand him the directions.