In just two weeks, I will celebrate 10 years of marriage with my amazing husband. If you don’t want to hear about my husband again then this is your fair warning because that is exactly what I am going to do. If you’d like to read more about him and our relationship, here is a previous post. Ten years is a significant time to be married (and we’ve actually been a couple for almost 19 years) but I hope and pray that for us it will just be a drop in the bucket. So, here I am with ten years under my belt and what do I have to say about marriage? Well, what I have to say may not be the most popular thing to say about marriage and may be something that most people don’t want to hear but something I feel is important to say especially with so much of society’s focus on the demise of relationships.. Here it is: (my) Marriage is easy. (I hope no one gasped or vowed to never read this blog again!) Let me explain. I am in no way undermining couples who find marriage difficult (we all have our crosses to bear) nor do I necessarily believe that it will always be easy for I have no idea what God’s plan is for us. But, overall, in my experience, marriage is the easiest thing I have ever done. My husband is my other half. I know some people don’t agree with that statement thinking of halves as 50-50 but what I mean is I am 100% and he is 100% but we are still not whole without each other. Does that make any sense? I absolutely love this quote from Emily Bronte which I believe sums it up, “ He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, mine and his are the same.” I am only who I am because God gave us to each other to make us whole. I truly believe I was made for him and he was made for me and together we are one. My husband is not a religious man; he doesn’t go to church or read the Bible. He can’t quote Scripture or recite a prayer but he lives the Bible each day in his marriage. You know that 1 Corinthians 13 that is oh, so popular at weddings? That is him; that is our marriage.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous or pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude nor does it seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices the truth.”
If you replaced the word “love” with my husband’s name (and “it” with “he”) - each one of those would still be true. And I believe he would say the same of me. Most people find that almost unbelievable. It isn’t possible for people to spend so much time together and not fight or nitpick or get frustrated or annoyed with each other but we really don’t and not that long ago I realized why. We both accepted a long time ago that everything we do, we do in/with love, we know the other person would never do anything to hurt the other on purpose and our overall goal is to make the other happy. We live for each other’s happiness. If we hurt each other on accident, we simply acknowledge it, sincerely apologize for it and try really hard not to do it again. If one of us forgets something or doesn’t do a chore, we just pick up the slack without resentment. And, we are grateful to the other person for everything that they do. We say “thank you” and “I love you” more in one day than most people say in a week (or a month...or a year...depending on who the other people are). We communicate our wants and our needs knowing we won’t be judged and knowing we will get what we want or need because all we want is to make each other happy. I really do believe that’s what God wants us to be in our marriage.
I guess my point is, that my marriage is the greatest gift I have ever been given and I just praise God for blessing me with this wonderful man who is my partner in life and parenthood, my best friend, my love, someone who most times understands me better than I understand myself; who helps me continually be a better person. Thank you, Lord!