The Hard Knocks of Marriage

  I started dating around the age of sixteen. My dad was NOT okay with this. It was my one rebellion in life and it was so stupid. The guy was older and in the end my heart was left broken and he had another girl pregnant. I took a break after that. All through my life there had been this guy first in my grade, then behind me a grade, then back in my grade and he was a year older than I was. The only reason I payed any mind to who he was was because he dated two of my good friends at different points in highschool. He was tall and super skinny, he was funny and he seemed to work a lot and he did not do well in school at all. I got straight and I mean very straight A's and I drove my parents mini van with no qualms. He drove a red low rider Mazda and he parked crookedly in the parking lot every day he actually showed up at school. After we graduated somehow life brought us together in little ways. I was never interested in him in a dating sense but we just kept spending time together. Slowly God had to really REALLY work on my heart and He did. The day he asked me out I said yes AND he was leaving in a week to go to Africa for five months. I decided pretty reluctantly to wait around for him and while he was there I played the very faithful girl friend. I wrote letters, sent packages, spent hundreds on phone bills and emailed every day. I was attending University and working at the time. We were twenty and twenty one. When he came back we felt closer for sure and after three months of being back he proposed. I said yes and three months later we were married.

  We were complete opposites. I did not know his family well. He did not know mine well either and before we knew it we had to live with them. We had been around each other our whole lives but did we really know each other? No. Dating is great and all but marriage is the real deal. Dating is the fantasy. It really is. No matter how firmly your resolve to keep that dating passion alive it is emotion and it is not reality. Choices my dears! Love is a choice!! The grind of paying bills, having to work for your dreams, making specific mature choices to give to each other even when it hurts.... marriage is about being grown ups. It is about battling for purity and selflessness and not battling each other but the world around us.

  We were twenty one and twenty two when we got married. So we have been growing up together for a while now. It has been a pretty rough go if I do say so myself. I am glad we are still together. I feel like so many girls maintain their fairy tale marriage image and are so hurt and crushed when the reality of real life hits them. I know I sure was. My husband had not been raised to serve me or prioritize me. In our first year of marriage because of his personality he did do that however and it was pretty romantic. I thought it was going to be that way forever. I felt so loved. However after that first year I got really sick and it changed a lot of my capabilities. I was not able to give in the same way. I started to feel empty and I was so sick. If I could go back I don't even know what I would change because I tried so hard. I just literally did not have the strength or tools to do what was needed.

  One of the pitfalls that poisons marriage is a hard heart, a protected heart, a bitter heart, a heart that is not able to be vulnerable. When that happens you are getting awful close to the marriage grave. Do anything you can to run as far away from that grave as possible. You want to be able to be vulnerable and soft.  You want to be able to freely give of yourself. It is different then dating. It is not a fairy tale. It is cleaning up your spouses vomit and feces when they are so sick they are not capable. It is working through the heart break of grief and loss together. It is fighting fair. It is equality and honor. It is having compassion and submission. It is so many many things that go so far past spending hours in each others arms on perfect dates. I think though that as a girl that is really what I still wish for if I was being totally honest. I felt so desired and beautiful when we were dating. I was being pursued! Now... I mean my husband and I don't even sleep in the same bed anymore!! It is not because we don't want to! It is just our reality with our children and needing decent sleep in any way we can get it. It took us years to get to that point but it is our reality now. I still wish for intimacy and connection and with our children at this stage we can barely get a word in edgewise to each other on a given day.

  So how do we keep on? We just do. We go on dates when we can. I'll facebook him sometimes. We chat on the phone at his lunch break. We are the happiest we have ever been in our marriage and it is because we both had to let go of expectations, we had to put boundaries in place, and we had to reshape what marriage looked like to us as our parents had not been able to give us many tools in that regard. It has taken so much work. It has been agonizing and exhausting and honestly it was because I was so dang immature and emotionally damaged from a lot of things and so was he!!!!

   So if I was going to give marriage advice in a hard ass way to my younger self I'd say ~ grow up sweet pea. You are a big girl. Get those big girl panties on. Quit whining because you don't need to be a victim in this life. Figure out who you are and be good with that. Have some strong boundaries and loads of self respect. Get lots of counseling and take care of yourself every darn day. Give as much as you possibly can in the most healthy way. Forgive forgive forgive!!!! You can do this. You can and you will. You are a fighter, you are strong, you are kind, you are capable and you are amazing. If I took my own advice it would have been a lot breezier but it was more like a strong gale and I was often blown over. Oh have I changed. If my husband were to comment he would probably look a little chagrined and agree strongly but in the end admit it is pretty awesome. He has had some hard knocks himself poor man. We all do though dont we? It's life; but with support we can do this! Yay for marriage :) Yay for growing up. Yay for being able to stay together. Many have not been able to but we have and for that I am grateful.