The news has been full of stories over the past few months, one public figure after another credibly accused of mishandling the women around them. Juxtaposed against this epidemic is the mockery heaped on Vice President Mike Pence due to his policy of not being alone with a woman who was not his wife. I've always thought that not only is VP Pence politically wise, he's exemplifying a safeguard for his marriage that has been dangerously devalued.

When my husband and I first met, I remember one of our first emails dealt with the subject of being together.

I believe in being together, I wrote to him.

He wrote back a day later, sounding a little skeptical. What do you mean by "together"? Because I like to have a little privacy in the bathroom.

I knew then that he was a special man. He didn't start by saying he wanted to have guys' night out with his friends or a hobby where a wife wasn't included.

Spoiler alert: when you live together all the time, you may forget to keep the bathroom off limits. Oh well.

We discussed the idea of being together for a while and it eventually became an important foundation of our life. For us, together is a verb. It's also a philosophy we have to work constantly to protect. Because it's easy to grow apart. It only takes a little peg to split a giant tree trunk. Little separations become big ones and big ones destroy marriages.

When I was little, I remember my mother remarking that something she had always hoped for in her marriage was that she and my dad would never come to a major conviction separately. It made quite an impression on me because I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have one parent think something was really important and the other disagree. I was thankful for their togetherness.

Whoever I married would have to be someone that I could not only follow, but live with completely. Learn with. Make lots of little decisions with, not just big ones. Talk easily with. Live normal everyday life with. I needed to trust the road he was walking because I intended to walk every step with him or I wouldn't get married. The specter of the happily married couple who simply drift apart was something I dreaded.

Before Ben and I decided to get married, one of the tests we put ourselves to was doing everything together. I went to work with Ben. He did yardwork at my family's rental houses with me. We would be together from the time we got up until he left for home at night. We learned very quickly that we were ready to commit to spending that time all the time. We liked living our lives together. It was also easy to recognize each other for who we really were. It's hard to keep up pretenses when you spend that kind of time together.

The longer we're married, the more vital we recognize this commitment to be.

When we're physically together, we tend to focus on the same interests, hear the same news, be involved in all the same little things that shape a life. Our experiences are deeply intertwined. It creates a closeness of thought that makes the ability to communicate easier. Above and beyond the obvious safeguards against things like emotional separation and infidelity, it's made us live OUR life instead of lives that overlap here or there.

If we have a day when we're apart, it's amazing how difficult and time-consuming it is to try to describe to each other the things that happened; if we were apart every day, at some point I think we'd stop trying because it would just take too much effort.

People who know us have occasionally asked, "Do you ever fight?"

No.

Disagreed? Well, sure.

But when we disagree, we come into agreement quickly.

Decisions are based on a totality of experience and a step-by-step understanding of a situation that is much easier to agree on if two people have been walking that road together the whole time. There is huge advantage to having seen and heard all the same things, to have been part of the first beginnings of a thought instead of playing catch-up when it's grown into a fully developed opinion. To have hashed something out in a dozen small ways during everyday life instead of having to reach a Big Conversation where two people try to put the progression of a deep conviction into words. That's often when fights happen, because spouses cannot see where each is coming from and the frustration this causes is real and damaging.

Miscommunication is such a common difficulty in marriage that it's a stereotype, the stuff of sitcoms and self-help books. Being together as much as possible is one of the ways we have chosen to give ourselves the best chance of overcoming this relationship-killer. It's not always easy to do - sometimes it would just be easier to do things separately, and there are certainly interests we don't pursue because they don't lend themselves to togetherness. Having small children adds another layer to this maintenance since there are just things we can't do or can't do together because someone has to take care of the kids. When Ben has to visit a manufacturing facility as part of our business, we can't take three toddlers and a baby inside. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense for us to sit outside and wait. But if it even remotely makes sense, we do even these kinds of things together.

As I type this, Ben is sitting next to me browsing through various articles and reading pieces of them to me as they catch his interest. I'm reading him bits of what I'm writing to get his feedback. The house is quiet and the kids are all asleep. And this is our normal life. Tomorrow we will get up together, do some work-related errands together, tend to our children together, talk a lot and probably read together as well. I love our marriage. I love our time together. It's worth every bit of effort and sacrifice that goes into making it happen.