Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Embracing the Journey - Trials in Marriage

Embrace The Journey Of Marriage & Link Up Party   wednesday rant    seasons newlyweds hardships hard times

So many blogs I follow are authored by lovely ladies who are either engaged, seriously dating or are
newly weds. So many times people avoid talking about the realities of marriage because, well let's be honest
sometimes marriage is messy.  Before I was married all anyone said to me was
"marriage is hard" or "a good marriage takes work".
So although I haven't been married all that long myself, I wanted to
share some of the things I have learned and an insight into my reality of marriage.

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I love my husband dearly, but for some ignorant reason
I believed that once we were married, somehow that bond would prevent us from fighting.

I'm going to go ahead and tell you that I was wrong.  Plain wrong.
I tell people (on the rare occasion that I discuss this) that if our marriage could withstand
the first five months, then we were set for life!


When we were married, we paid for the wedding ourselves. Every last penny.
A huge accomplishment we're proud of, and we didn't go into any debt for it.
BUT, it meant we didn't have any savings for a season in life when we really needed some.


We got back from our Honeymoon & hit the ground running.
I literally spent the first night in our home alone. In fact I spent almost every night alone.
I was afraid to sleep in our bedroom alone (I'd never lived on my own before)
so I slept 5 of the 7 nights a week on our couch because John had to go to work.

John was finishing his Masters degree - thank Heaven he was down to a final Sports Law class that was entirely online and he also had to complete his Practicum - an internship with a Soccer Club about an hour from our house. In addition to working 32 hours a week for the Soccer team to complete his practicum requirement; he also worked full time as a night stocker at a Walmart - 35 minutes from home (in the opposite direction of his other job). You do the math... he never slept!

I was also working at Walmart full time (yay for our expensive college educations!)
and I cleaned houses and baby sat on the side.  We were both stretched so thin! (and did I mention we're a 1 car family??)

My Aunt Shannon said to me once after John and I were engaged that sometimes in marriage you have to wake up in the morning and decide that you still love your husband.
I think this was some of the best advice I have ever gotten!

John and I fought about everything.  It was easy to do when you were so tired, and so stressed
and so just Blah!  I honestly thought the marriage would fall apart.
We probably could have gotten a lot of good out of talking to other married couples about their hard times
but we were both so embarrassed that things were hard for us, especially so early in our marriage. It doesn't help that we don't know many married couples our age.
We both knew that we loved each other and it all came down to a promise.

We had just vowed to be faithful in the good times and bad.
In some ways we had a small cheat sheet for our marriage in that we knew things would get somewhat better
as soon as school was finished for him that May. We thought that if we could stick it out until then
all our problems would go away.

Well... they didn't. The stressful things honestly didn't truly settle out until about late September early October (9 months after we were married). But our marriage really took a turn for the better about April. We realized (and by realized I mean that we both screamed ourselves hoarse and threw embarrassing temper tantrums until it was out of our system and only then did we come to understand that BOTH of us had a lot going on and fighting only made things worse!) that yes, both of us would be grumpy sometimes. We would have short tempers but holding it against him and drudging up last weeks fight would only make matters worse. By the time John had graduated and gotten a job in his field and our lives had settled out into a normal routine I had figured out that life isn't just about me.

I know you're probably sitting there thinking, 'oh gosh, she really hates being married doesn't she?' - no actually I love it!  It's the best, most wonderful thing to ever happen to me but reality is that it does take
an investment of time and work!
I think that a lot of the lessons learned in the first six or so months of marriage were ones that every newly married couple has to learn. How to share a space with a person, always having your spouse around, accountability, responsibility, money and time management, etc. Our lessons were just complicated by our stress factor. 

I hope that this post just gives those of you who are maybe having a rocky time in your relationship hope that this is just for a season and life will settle out. Now that we are past our "hard time" (not to say that we don't have stress or occasionally disagree), I feel more comfortable opening up to friends and family about what we went through. 
Guess what, in no way were we alone. If you're struggling with how to adjust and settle in to a marriage. Maybe your marriage or relationship is taking a beating from the other stressors in your life, I really encourage you to take the time to talk to someone you trust about it! They will be able to offer you perspective and make encouraging pointers for ways you can help the problem. 
My advise: Marriage is giving 100% of yourself all the time and expecting nothing in return.



This blog post is a link up with The Unveiled Wife
Embrace The Journey Of Marriage & Link Up Party   wednesday rant    seasons newlyweds hardships hard times

2 comments:

  1. Reading this post was like you were in my head. I figured it was just me alone with my thoughts! Lol!

    When Jason and I 1st started to live together getting used to him was the hardest part. I hadn’t lived with a guy ever and only had ever lived with girlfriends so getting used to a man and his mess was and still is the hardest part of the relationship. I didn’t help the situation also that he was working in Midland for 3 months when we 1st moved in together. It was just Jacob ( our cat ) and I looking at each other every night. I felt completely alone and in those moments I missed the regular routine of fighting with my sisters for the bathroom and having my mother feed me.

    Our relationship to begin with started the way most don’t. He was going through something because of an ex ( health scare ) and I never once thought to myself that I was going to let him go through it alone . I was going to be there for him and I have and always will.

    I think that in every healthy relationship if there isn’t bickering then that’s not normal. Mean someone is repressing emotions and that’s never good. Take us for example…we argue over the most mundane things. …from “how come he can never take the empty hangers out of the closet on laundry day” or what he always likes to point out that when I’m quiet it’s because there’s something wrong. Which isn’t true half the time. We are 2 of the most anal retentive people and some how we ended up in a relationship together.

    The hardest part for me in our 2 years ( come December ) that we’ve been together was being taken care of. To finally let my emotions out and to have someone see me with flaws and all and still love me. He is the strong one and he pushes me to be a better woman and more understanding. I’ve opened up more because of the arguments we’ve had and we grow from them. You learn from them and as clique as that is it’s the honest truth.

    I look forward to our next stage in life together. He actually has me looking forward to marriage which doesn’t scare me as much as before. If we haven’t killed each yet then I think we are up for the challenge of growing old together.

    I look at it as a never ending learning experience and I’ll be lucky to go through it with him.

    If you ever need to vent for any reason I’m always around. You’d be surprised on how much we’d be able to get off our chest about the both of them and the things they do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm so glad that it isn't just me!! John was going through a health issue not long after we started dating too!! Sounds like we have a lot more in common than we thought!!
      We should get together sometime soon!!

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