The thing is that I am still pretty much the same car. I am in good nick. Even this monday a student asked me how old I was and was surprised when I said 30. He said I look 23. I am svelte, tall and from a certain angle am quite dashing. Before being married I was always the most successful with the girls because they fell for my big eyes and high nose. All my wifes coworkers comment on my beauty and how I look younger than her. Even though I am a couple of years older. So I resent the notion that I am a used car. I am ever more successful and have over the years accumulated a fair amount of wealth myself. I am just not willing to kill myself to do that now that I have don't have to. I'll work hard, but there are limits because I am a limited resource and I don't want to burn out. And I am not willing to leave here and lose the current money that I am still managing to take in.

Any faults that I have were probably worse when we first met. When I was younger I was far more eager to go out drinking, now I only do that once a week and maybe have a few midweek. I am mature about most things, I studied to maintain competitiveness, I have learned a bit of the language. In many ways I am really quite improved and less naive culturally. Our earlier fights used to be quite feisty, but these days I am quite passive. I once punched my hand through an acoustic guitar. I would never dream of harming my guitar these days. I'm the one that has matured, but she still carries on in the same pedantic, trite and unreasonable ways. She hasn't hit me in these recent fights, but at times she has even rained punches down upon me. Quite feeble punches mind you and I just cover up and pretend I am an old Jones Jr sitting on the ropes. Maybe this is a sign of her developing emotionally or else realising her punching technique hurts her hands more than me (like I say, I am all bones and elbows! ).

The idea of trading her in for a 22 year old might sound good physically, but I dread the interaction between the grown up me and another immature, potential lunatic.