I know of many marriages that came to a quick end because, as one of the parties would later say, "The guy (of gal) I married turned out to be really, really crazy." "He (she) was a nutcase." "I don't know what happened. After the wedding, he (she) started acting really bizarre."

When you really stop and think about it, I'm not sure that we even have a very good handle on what "normal" is. Everybody you know has some characteristic that is different. Even though that characteristic may not be what you, or even they, might choose in a perfect world, it should not be allowed to frighten or dominate your thinking about who they are. And that applies to your relationship. As long as the quirks or nuances are not abusive to you or blatantly destructive to your partner, you can certainly learn to live with them.

There are plenty of people who have nuances that some other person might describe as abnormal. Say you have a wife who, after the birth of your children, becomes absolutely paranoid about the children's safety, getting up ten times a night to check on them. Or say you have a husband who becomes so involved in conspiracy theories that he wants to build a bomb shelter in his back yard. Or your partner seems, in certain public surroundings, deplorably shy or goes on crying jags for seemingly no reason at all. It doesn't mean that you can't mesh with them, that you can't get along just fine.

Sometimes, we feel that because something is not mainstream, then it must be toxic to the relationship, and that's not necessarily true. Everyone has quirks and odd personality traits, and they can sometimes seem bizarre. If your partner's quirks and nuances are non-abusive to you and non-destructive to him or her, you can work on them. But at the same time, you can also accommodate them and enjoy a rewarding and fulfilling relationship. Even "craziness" can be made to work.