Love & Marriage

Next Monday, a week from today, my husband and I will be celebrating our 7^th Wedding Anniversary. As I began to think about my next blog topic, I realized I have never blogged about my husband or my marriage. It’s such an integral part of my life, and yet I've never really thought to write about it. Not until now.

While I chewed on the subject all weekend, I tried to decide what to write about. I had many ideas, all of which I quickly scrapped. It didn't take long at all for this to seem like a rather daunting task, especially when the subject alone could be the focus of an entire blog website.

My husband and I have a good marriage. A great marriage really. And interestingly enough this great marriage was forged on the fires of adversity.

We were in the middle of our second year of marriage where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The majority of the difficulties began when circumstances outside of our control caused hardship and trouble. Someone robbed our storage unit, we accidentally owed the IRS money, our water heater broke which ruined our floors and the insurance claim took months to resolve. This was just some of the things that happened as an onslaught of problems came our way. All these pressures seem to bring to the surface all the personal issues and baggage we brought into our marriage. In that year alone we went from rarely, if ever, having a fight to a marriage in crisis.

We were so fortunate to have really great and supportive people in our lives. Recognizing that my own hurts and hang-ups existed well before I met my husband, I sought the help and guidance of a Christian counselor. I spent a good two years in counseling learning how to change some ideas that were causing more harm than good in my heart and life. I learned how these ideas were contributing to the dynamics of my marriage issues. My husband in turn sought help from others to work through all of his underlying issues, hang ups, and baggage.  He focused on his stuff. I focused on my stuff. We both had a lot of work to do.  And so our love story really began to take shape during these years.

Our marriage isn't great because we’re two good people who loved enough to make it work. Our marriage is great because we fought for it. We recognized that some of the “ME” had to change if we were going to have a good “US.” We realized that we didn't know it all. We knew that we were taking our cues from things we saw on TV, movies, and what we saw on the outside of other people’s lives. We had to unlearn some false beliefs and relearn what love and marriage looks like. 

We had no idea when we said our vows those seven year ago, the hardships and mountains we would have to climb to be where we are today. We had no idea we’d have to fight and work our way to a good place. We also had no idea that the hardships we went through were the tools God was using to reshape our lives and our marriage. It was hard. It was long. There was hurt and pain and even suffering. And I am ever so grateful for those times. We are the better for it. Our marriage is incredible because of it.

We still fight and argue about stupid things. Every couple does. We still have hardships and trouble. We are no stranger to financial distress or relationship adversities. But things are different. There isn't an attitude of “every man for himself” or “escape while you still can”. Instead we look back at all the things we've been through, and we know that if we can survive that, we can survive anything.

But the best part of all isn't that we've survived. It’s that we continue to grow. We continue to listen and learn. We continue to forgive and ask for forgiveness when we goofed up. We ask for help and advice when we need it. We set boundaries to protect our heart and our relationship from outside intrusions. We recognize that we don’t know it all. And mostly we realize there’s no other person we’d rather be on this thrilling, crazy, hard, mundane, and unpredictable life with than each other.