I attended a love fest recently. A wedding. At 45 years kinda young, I haven’t gone to a wedding in what seems like forever. Remember those days when you were going to a wedding every weekend? Not so much anymore.
So it was with complete joy and excitement hubs and I attended my friend’s wedding that was truly a celebration of love. No one wanted the evening to end. The happy couple radiated such love, content and authenticity, it spread like the scent of lilacs in the spring. Their joy permeated the room and made me look at my hubs differently.
We danced all night. We giggled, we drank, we took pictures in a photo booth. We had such a wonderful time. It got me to thinking – why don’t we do this more often? Why do these feelings get buried and why do we allow it? The feelings get lost in the same old same old: carpools, sick kids, financial troubles,work, annoyance that he yawns too much and God only knows what he thinks about me some days. I do know, but I won’t tell you.
All married couples know married life gets stale. There are months, sometimes years of struggle, annoyance and boredom. There are times when you find your spouse isn’t really all that and think – what have I done? What would it be like to be single? There are times when one of you is checked out emotionally, physically or spiritually and the other carries the load. There are times when the load gets really heavy and it seems some days it’s not worth carrying.
Plain and simple, sometimes it sucks to be married. It sucks to have to be the one carrying the load when you just don’t feel like it, but for some reason, you must. Your spouse just doesn’t have it in him/her this season of the marriage. You may not either, but even if you have just a smidge more than your partner, it’s up to you. And sometimes we want to throw in the towel. Sometimes, we do.
The frustration, for many couples, is this doesn’t just happen once or twice. It happens often during a decades plus marriage. You fall, you realize it, you get up. You fall again, don’t realize it for a while, think “Ooh, we are really disconnected this time,” and you get up again. Marriage is a series of ups and downs. I think the saving grace is when the time between the down and then up again gets less and less. And yet, there is no magic pill or equation. If you want to stay married, you learn acceptance, patience, diligence and remember to be and feel the love.
It’s no secret we need to nurture our marriages to keep them vibrant and growing. When we stop nurturing, the marriage suffers. When we nurture – it blooms – most of the time. But what about the times when one of you is putting all you have into it and the other just doesn’t respond? That’s a scary place for married couples. Thankfully, my hubs and I have a decent balance of me putting in more sometimes, him putting in more sometimes and the grace filled seasons when both of us are giving our all. Does that balance flail? Sure it can. That’s when it sucks the most.
Marriage though, at least for me, is a joyful, challenging, sometimes crappy and ever changing road filled with necessary growth. There is nothing like sharing your life with someone. Having a person. The person. I love my person. I love that he is the first person I want, NEED, to share good news with. I love having a constant, someone to touch – whenever I want to, I can reach out and touch my hubs. A hand on his cheek or a quick grab of the tush – I get to do this. With him! We share a life and that’s what I love about marriage.
Because I love the good parts of marriage, of our marriage, and the many many good parts of my husband, I work through the sucky times. And there are days I don’t want to. And neither does he. And yet. We do. We rely on each other to pick up the slack when the other can’t and we love fiercely, honoring our marriage vows and sticking it out through the imperfections, annoyances and shit days, knowing full well a love fest is just around the corner when we choose to arrive there.
Do you think marriage can suck, but is still worthwhile? How do you overcome the tough seasons? I would love to know. Please comment and we can chat about it.
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