I have certain preconceived notions about people who marry their college sweethearts. It's not fair, I know, but I do.

Such people are conventional, conservative, and timid. They prefer comfort and routine to excitement. In other words, they're nothing like my wife and me.

Emily and I met on the first day of college. In our freshman dorm, full of Long Island sorority girls and future corporate lawyers, we were the only two people wearing dirty overalls and thrift-store flannels.

I had long hair [1] and played guitar (badly), which was all the justification Emily needed for befriending me. She had dyed streaks of blue into her own hair, and the stories she told reminded me of my own.

Now, at 29, we're considerably better groomed, and my embarrassment at being one of those people I look down on for marrying early is tempered by the knowledge that I couldn't imagine someone more perfect for me.

A doctor and proud science geek, Emily is smarter than I am—one of the smartest people I've ever met, in fact—but suitably awed by my expertise in the areas of pop culture, world history, and spelling. She's a feminine girl who can happily spend hours baking lemon squares, but she can drink straight tequila [2] without making a face.

She's a compassionate soul who thinks seriously about issues like poverty and global health, but she does a hilarious impression of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that she looks great in a slinky dress, and that her sexual fantasies involve other women.

In fact, I'd say we're perfectly matched. But "perfect" and "marriage" are two words that should never appear in the same sentence. Perfect is an outcome; marriage is a process that can be massively trying under the best circumstances.

Those of us in good marriages are usually reluctant to talk about our problems in public—perhaps to avoid seeming disrespectful to our spouses, or perhaps just out of superstition—but they exist all the same. Emily and I may see eye to eye most of the time, but we're married all of the time. How could we not come into conflict once in a while?

And our differences give us ample fodder for conflict.

Emily is the ultimate planner, the kind of person who, at 7 A.M. on moving day, has everything we own boxed and labeled. I do everything by trial and error, and get squirmy if I have to commit to something farther off than next weekend's tennis date.

Emily comes from a close, affectionate family whom she adores; I can barely tolerate my parents and siblings, and avoid even talking to them on the phone. Emily's a stickler for traditional manners—the hostess gift, the thank-you note, the Christmas card. I haven't written a thank-you card since my bar mitzvah (and I'm still working on those).

Inevitably, these differences sometimes lead to fights. Now, I'm aware that there are couples that claim not to mind fighting. (Take my sister and her husband: their epic screaming matches are just high-volume dialogues, punctuated by the occasional destruction of a kitchen appliance.) I can’t understand this.

Since both Emily and I grew up amid constant parental histrionics, we value quiet more than most people. For us, domestic tranquility is as much a lifestyle choice as a function of our compatibility. We bicker, of course—about where to set the thermostat, or whether we really need to hire a cleaning service—but most of these exchanges end up as jokes, and any lingering grumpiness can usually be resolved with some timely sex.

Still, once or twice a year, we really get into it. What makes these blowouts so volatile, even more than the months of suppressed emotion fueling them, is our diametrically opposed fighting styles.

I crave immediate resolution; once a conflict erupts, I feel that both parties ought to lock themselves in a room and speak their minds, loudly if necessary, until a conclusion has been reached. Emily is more circumspect; if she finds herself getting too emotional, she'll walk out and stay away until she figures out exactly what she needs to say—leaving me writhing in suspense. As George W. Bush has learned, asymmetrical warfare is a bitch.

Our worst fight ever was over money [3]. It took place a few months before our wedding, a time when Emily, a student, was earning none, and I, a reporter, was not doing much better. Emily's a consummate grown-up about money, sticking to a budget and never running a balance on her credit card. I have trouble with those things, and have been known to cut myself some slack.

During a discussion of finances, it emerged that I had unilaterally decided to increase the size of my own budget [4], thereby decreasing the proportion of each paycheck that went into the wedding fund. Her eyes filled with tears as she demanded to know how I could be so callous. That was the first and only time I've slept on the couch. I remember standing outside my own locked bedroom door, laughing in spite of myself at being reduced to a clichéd sitcom husband.

Like the others, that one worked itself out too. But since then, I've been very careful not to make that mistake.

She's wrong about that, of course, and in the calmer moments that make up the vast majority of our time together, she knows it. As alien as we can seem to each other during a fight, we couldn't be more alike in the ways that matter most.

We both love kids, and want to have a couple of our own eventually. We both have jobs we love, but resent the way they take over our lives. We both long to live in the mountains. We both find sexual jealousy bizarre and unnecessary [5], and believe honesty is the only thing that's non-negotiable.

Above all, we're both rationalists at the core. If you can convince me, through reasoned argument and evidence, that your way is better than mine, then you get to have your way, and the same goes for Emily.

This is not to say that we don't have our share of blind passions and idiosyncrasies, such as my compulsive need to find anything I misplace and Emily's pathological response to highway traffic. But, in the end, it's a point of pride for both of us that we set these knee-jerk impulses aside and do whatever makes the most sense—even in areas of life that traditionally aren't subject to reason.

In a world where more than half of all marriages end badly, you hear an awful lot about passion cooling over time and familiarity breeding contempt. But among the many things Emily and I share is a belief that we can overcome those obstacles.

I may be a little immature, like most guys my age, and Emily may be a little type-A, like most of the women we immature guys seem to gravitate to. Neither of us, however, is lazy, or incapable of reflection.

A couple that's not afraid to work at it and talk to each other can become happier, more in love, more aware, more harmonious over time. I know, because we've managed it so far. Even if we are the kind of people who married their college sweethearts.