They never said marriage would be this: hard, frustrating, amazing, fun, wonderful, stressful, exhausting, full of compromises, rewarding, etc. When I met K (the husband) marriage was the furthest thing from my mind. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get married, and it freaked me out so much that my friends and I called marriage “fishing”, otherwise I’d start to have this ridiculous anxiety attack, and get incredibly uncomfortable. I dated a guy for a couple of years, then when he told me he loved me I, literally, moved away. So, love, marriage, lasting relationships were not something I had a good track record with. Then, I met K.
This man is the most patient person I’ve ever met, which has been both good and bad for us. I still find myself wondering how we even got to where we are, and how it all worked out. I don’t really know, but I’m so grateful it did.
I’m not even going to pretend that our almost 4 years of marriage has been all smooth sailing. There have been many, many fights and tears, as well as times where we honestly didn’t know if we were going to make it, or if we should just call it quits. I’m sure there will be more of those, but the thing we are both realizing is that marriage is hard, but so are most things worth having.
Marriage is a huge adjustment; living with a person, pretty much being with them 24/7 and making a whole new life together. Picturing it, it looks like lots of late night cuddles, cute breakfast cooking, and fun, and it’s actually so much more. Taking care of each other when they’re sick, trying not to scream when your person doesn’t match the bathroom and you almost gag walking by, figuring out finances together, putting up with their weird quirks that never seem to end, learning to put each other as a top priority, while also not forgetting to take care of yourself, etc. Seriously, we’ve struggled so much with those, and trying to find a balance so we each feel like our needs are being met. Looking back I have no idea why I thought this was all going to be easy, a walk in the park, but I did. I had this naive idea of what a marriage took, and was shocked and a bit overwhelmed when marriage turned out to be hard.
Being married to K has changed me in more ways than I can say, and has pushed me to my limits more than ever before, but it’s also showed me what it means to love, and to love someone more than yourself.
How far we’ve come, how hard we’ve worked to get there, and how lucky we have been has been on my mind a lot lately. I’m guessing that’s because we’re coming up on our 4 year anniversary, or it could be that for the first time after buying the house and the layoff I feel like things are going to be ok. We’ve worked really hard these past few months on our communication, and making sure the other feels loved, and making time for each other. Those all sound like simple things, but they are, and have been, so easy to put on the back burner, which we’ve done.
Life is crazy, especially with 4 dogs and each of us working multiple jobs, but then there are moments like these. The dogs adore K, as he does them. He’ll always take a few minutes before setting down his packpack and unloading from work to say hi to them. Then, he’ll lift Luna up, she’ll put her back paws on his belt buckle, stretch up to his face, tail wagging, and go crazy licking his face to say hello. This alone makes her entire day. Seriously, she is so happy. He’ll then do the same with Sherlock. Then, he’ll go downstairs and wrestle with Padfoot and Sharky, and they’re in heaven. Just seeing him with them, and how much he loves them, makes the craziness a bit less overwhelming, and make me love him even more.
Some days marriage sucks, and is the last thing I want to do, but then I think about the moments like this, and it helps me see that the bad times won’t last forever, and that even when things suck there’s nowhere I’d rather be.
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