Marriage, harder than giving birth? Maybe, maybe not. Blog Day #8

You think that delivering a baby is hard? Well, it is. Trust me. I've done it five times, epidural free.

But there's something much harder than delivering a baby: maintaining and building a marriage.

Marriage-- the uniting of two people in mind, spirit and body; the relationship in which there is 100% mutual submission; the human representation of the relationship between Church and Christ; a faithful partnership between a fully committed man and fully committed woman; the center of a family unit.

These are the ideal definitions of a marriage. But anyone who is or has been married knows that this is more the way people look at it:

Marriage-- finding your soul mate; devoting your life to someone who meets your needs; the next step in a long romantic relationship; a relationship in which both sides gives 50/50; the union of two compatible people.

Well, I've been married for 10 1/2 years now. And I can say that there is not two more different people than my husband and I. Both of our careers have drawn strong aspects of our personalities out, and we have both become very headstrong in very different ways. We have different tastes in TV shows and music. We think differently, eat differently, socialize differently. We are just. . . .different.

Definitely not something you would expect from two people who are supposed to be soul mates.

It's taken us 10 years, but we finally hit a point where we could actually say things are good. Don't get me wrong, we have had moments throughout our marriage where things were going well. And we've had plenty of moments to celebrate life together. But I would say that most of the years were turbulent, to say the least.  We were busy taking care of infants, struggling financially, being between careers, changing careers, living in small spaces with small children, learning each others' "beauty secrets", learning how to handle each others' headstrong-ness, and fighting over who was the most tired. 

And I gotta tell you. . .it's hard to spice up your romantic life when you've spent most of the day cleaning up poop and sitting next to the toilet waiting for toddlers to go "pee-pee on the potty."

All this to say that this spring, we have been doing well. It has nothing to do with my Facebook fast. This peaceful time just happened to occur during this Lent season. And I wanted to share, since it was one of the factors that made my 40 days so deeply refreshing.

So Johnny, your efforts to make me a priority have not gone unnoticed. Your help around the house has been appreciated. It fills me with joy when you tell me that you've played Princess with Zoe for a couple of hours. Thank you for being such a good dad, even on days when you haven't slept in 24 hours. You are a great protector, provider and spiritual leader of our home. You are a blessing to me and the children. We thank God for you everyday.