A Little Dose of Reality
Marriage is no fairytale. There. I said it. Marriage can be the most amazing, crazy wonderful thing. But sometimes it's just hard. Two people coming together (in my case--two very opposite people) makes for some interesting dynamics.
That's not to say I don't love my husband. It just means that sometimes we don't get along, don't see eye-to-eye. Sometimes we're not perfect and we struggle. And sometimes we're in complete harmony and work in sync.
I am grateful for staying power. I'm so happy that somehow we've both decided deep within us that no matter what we stick it out. That way when things are challenging or even really difficult we can see beyond the moment. Losing Joey was a test of our metal. I was pleased to see that in the darkest days we were more respectful and caring of one another. It would have been really easy to be selfish and think only of our own pain and our own desires for how Joey would be cared for, but somehow we knew that in order to put Joey first we had to put our needs second. The years after losing Joey have been rough. How could they not be? But we manage to push through on those most painful days.
And in other things we muddle through.
Does that sound unromantic? It might if I didn't believe that we're in it for the long haul and that if things are hard today (or maybe lots of todays) that things might be equally good for that long as well.
I'm not giving marriage advice. Good grief. That would be ridiculous and I'm obviously no expert.
But I will say that I love and respect my husband and want to be with him forever.
Do we have things to work on? Oh, heavens, yes!
But here's to "muddling through" and "fairytale moments" and "figuring it out" for 18 years. Who would have thought?
(Detail and supplies for creating this layout may be found
here at
www.twopeasinabucket.com)