I never realized how loving, yet tough something as foundational as marriage could be. You soon discover that living with someone else, day after day, can become draining. However, as draining as it may be, you would much rather have them beside you than anywhere else. Yes, this sounds a lot like love, but this is marriage. Of course, love is there, but day after day, you realize there is more needed, to keep this marriage afloat. I am a reader, so I began to peruse google, kindle books, amazon.com, seeking my pastor’s help and close friends of ours who have been married for years. Some have been married for five years others thirty years and others fifty years. It was amazing to see how much they all have been through and learned alongside their spouses.
Our first year of marriage of what should have been nothing but bliss, was a bowl of miscommunication, stress, arguments, and even thoughts of separation. Everyone kept telling us that it was just growing pains. The pains you get when you grow, I thought. It certainly did not feel like growing pains, but behold time began to play a role in just how tough our marriage was. With all of that negativity swirling around, we managed to find a way to laugh, pray, talk, eat dinner together and most of all, sleep in the same bed. That seems to be a huge commonality, when disagreements in a marriage occur. The wife tells the husband, “You are sleeping on the couch tonight.” By eliminating that option and vowing never to go to bed angry with each other or anything else, we struggled our way through our first year.
During this first year, we were also raising our daughter, who was now two years old. My husband went from, single and dating to married and a stepfather. We struggled with how to raise her, because he was raised somewhat differently from myself. We discussed what she should eat and when we would spend time with her. For months I struggled with the idea of sharing my daughter with someone else. You would think, it would have been common sense now that I am married. However, it was a struggle, a true test of my willpower and faith. I wanted their relationship to grow and I wanted us to be a family. I wanted the extra help in the morning, when it is time to get her ready for school or church. With all those wants, I decided to pray for direction and work on me. Amazingly after months of work on me, learning to let my guard down, their relationship blossomed.
After one year of marriage, I learned how to love, trust, understand, communicate, share, need and most of all have faith in my marriage. We are going on three years now and sometimes, I still struggle with faith. Now I have some years to look back on and remind myself of how far we have come. I can also remind myself of how far we will go. We are a team and I love my marriage and my family of three.