Sometimes we forget that love and marriage both take work. When we are engaged to be married and planning our wedding ceremony, we think the sky is the limit. We know if we aim for the moon, even if we miss – we’ll still be among the stars. We understand, above all else, that we love each other. This is a thought that we need to remember, because that love can sustain us in the best of times and the worst of times. The following is a bit of a personal glimpse, but it was the best way I knew to share my story with you.
- You never talk to me anymore
- All you ever seem to be is tired
- You never smile anymore
- All you care about is yourself
These repetitive statements are a red flag towards a bull for a burgeoning argument between couples whether they’ve been together for five months or five years. There’s an old adage that says after the first year of marriage: the honeymoon is over. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the honeymoon doesn’t begin until after you’ve rubbed off the glitter and the glow and seen the down and the dirty.
Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. But a horse must be trained to a lead line, then to pulling smaller objects before it can pull a carriage and be decked out in fancy trim. A marriage needs a lot of training for both parties as well. Training in compromise, communication and most of all, in forgiveness. When we forgive our partners for the very thing that we love them for, we build stronger marriages.
I know from whence I speak. My husband and I have been together for more than ten years. We’ve probably had more disagreements than we’ve had utterly romantic moments filled with candlelight and magic. I think of the magic in our marriage as being practical magic. We know how each other thinks, reacts and most of all, how the other one fights.
In the beginning, we were buddies. We went to movies, we hung out, we went horseback riding and in general, we had a really good time. When we had money, we spent it on each other and the most frivolous junk imaginable and we loved it.
True, there was the occasional snappish remark. And don’t get me started on the fact that my husband likes to make fun of the fact that I’m blonde. In fact, up until our fourth year together, the worst argument we ever had, was over an off-hand remark he made in the car.
“Don’t exhale,” he advised after I’d sighed in frustration over forgetting some directions. “Your head will go flat.”
I swear, the car swerved as I turned to look at him. My mouth flapped open soundlessly and I sort of gaped like a fish struggling for oxygen in the air. He was immediately contrite, but his contrition couldn’t outweigh his own amusement.
“I’m so sorry, baby!” He exclaimed just before he fell against the car door laughing. “Really, I’m sorry!”
“Yeah, you sound sorry.” I snapped. The impish problem that existed in this moment was that I was partially amused. I wanted to laugh. The comment, so unexpected and out of the blue, really did seem funny.
But it was also insulting.
My hackles were up and there would be no laughter if I had to strangle myself to keep it bottled up. I kept my eyes firmly locked on the road and ignored his snickering, buffoonish self. He tried to choke down the laughter, without much success I might add.
“I’m really sorry, you know I don’t honestly think that. But it just – popped out.”
“Uh huh.”
“You know blonde, airhead and you sighed and all I could see was a tire going flat.” He started laughing again.
“The laughter isn’t conducive to an apology, ya know.” I snarled and jerked the car into a turn as we finally arrived at our destination.
“I know – I know.” He was fighting for his breath. “I’ll be good. I promise!”
“Uh huh.” I grunted and parked the car. We locked up and headed into the store. I must have looked pensive or something because he asked me what was wrong. I shook my head. “Nothing, I was just trying to remember if there was anything else we needed while we were out.”
“Take a deep breath – it – ” He choked off the rest of the sentence, I punched him in the arm and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day.
It’s funny when you can say, wow – those were the days. Our arguments were over silly, stupid things and we were so happy to be in love and together, that in the long run – it just wasn’t important.
So what went wrong?
Nothing really. Just life. We’re in our tenth year together, we have a beautiful five-year-old little girl, a stack of debt and extremely busy lives. The only thing we lack is a little patience with each other. We’ve been through marriage meltdown, you know those middle of the night, one a.m. screaming matches that end with the two of us miserably sitting at the table and wondering why the hell are we married to begin with?
The last time this happened was a year ago. Financially, we were struggling. I was always tired because I was the primary parent; I managed our house and our animals. I worked non-stop, all hours of the day, taking breaks only to play or interact with our daughter.
By the time this midnight crisis struck, the gold and glitter was all gone. All that was left was my exhausted, angry and frustrated husband, a squalling baby and a mountain of responsibilities. Where was the fun? Where were the good times? What happened to playful arguments that meant nothing?
Those times were gone, we were people of substance and our arguments had substance.
“What do you want, Heather?” He asked me in that empty, toneless and too tired to fight anymore voice.
“I don’t know.”
“Well that really doesn’t help the situation.”
“I know. But I can’t answer that. I want – a lot of things. Some of them seem important and some of them don’t.” I was drained. I was exhausted. I was so damn tired of fighting with him. This isn’t who we were. How come it was who we became?
“That doesn’t tell me what I need to do.”
“I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t tell myself what to do. All I know is I’m exhausted all the damn time and you don’t notice unless I slap you upside the head with it. You resent it and act pigheaded if I so much as ask you to take out the garbage when you get home and all you ever want to do is go out with our friends or come and play a video game so you can and I quote: ‘RELAX!'” My voice climbed without me meaning to. “Which implies that you cannot relax with me.”
“Well, I can’t! All you ever do is complain!”
“Well maybe if you stopped being so lazy, I’d have less to complain about. Argh!” We both slammed our hands down, and we were both frustrated. We were trying to communicate and as anyone with half a brain could see, it wasn’t working.
“What do you want?” He asked me again after a long silence punctuated by sighs and eye-rolling.
“I want to enjoy my life again.” I answered finally. “I want to enjoy our life again. I want to feel like I am more than just a babysitter, a maid, a cook, a laundress and here for the convenience of you and the midget. I want to be a person again, a person who has needs.” Yeah, that about summed it up.
“Okay.” He nodded slowly and I could see his hands unclenching.
“What do you want?” I asked him.
“For you and the midget to be happy, safe and – to enjoy myself – ourselves again.”
“Okay.” It was my turn to nod slowly. We both fell silent and I rubbed at my face. I was so tired and in all honesty, I couldn’t even swear as to why this particular fight had even begun or why it escalated to where it was.
“Is it worth it?” I asked quietly.
“Is what worth it?”
“Us.” I answered. “Are we worth all this aggravation?”
We stared at each other and I saw the pained look in his eyes as he fought with his own emotions. “I think we are.”
“I think we are, too.” My answer came much quicker than his, but from the moment I said it, I knew it was true. “I think that’s why I hate this so much. I hate fighting with you, I hate disagreeing – I just want it over so we can go back to how it was.”
“And it’s hard.”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other for a long time and I sighed a very long and heavy sigh.
“Don’t exhale,” he whispered. “Your head will go flat.”
This time – I laughed.
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