A few days ago, I referred to my marriage as “happy” and “hard-working.” It’s important to me that none of you ever think that by a “happy marriage,” I mean one without tears or arguments or hardship. In reality, I think that expectations for a happy marriage that looks like that are what lead a lot of couples to breakdown. When a marriage hits rough waters, if you’re not prepared, it’d be easy to think: “This is not a happy marriage. Loving someone shouldn’t be this hard.”
But in truth? Loving someone is that hard.
I’ve written before about things Simon and I argue about – about who cleans the bathroom and whose turn it is to get up with Adlai. And it’s true, we’ve had some knock-down drag-outs over those things. There are big fights, too, about bigger issues, but you won’t ever find me writing here about those. It’s not out of dishonesty, or a desire to present this life as something more beautiful than it is. If anything, our big battles have added to the beauty, because we’ve made it through them, still holding on.
And that’s what a “happy, hard-working” marriage looks like. Like a boat, battered and wind-blown, but with two haggard sailors still inside, resting and peaceful because they’ve navigated the perfect storm of money and in-laws and insecurity and anger, and have found the sun still shining on the other side.
