Marriage is Hard

For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard that marriage is hard. I’ve heard that it takes work and that not all days are great.

But I’ll be really honest – I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Sure, hard things happen. Life is never easy, not even for a believer.

I’ll be the first to say though that I’m finally shedding some of my naivete (I used to be a French teacher and that took me three tries to spell correctly…oy vey).

Since June 12 of this year, I cannot think of one normal day.

My baby boy was born during a tornado.

We were quarantined in our room for no reason.

He cried for approximately 4 weeks straight till I finally mustered the courage to give him a little tough love.

I started potty training my daughter for real.

My husband got what we thought was the flu and six weeks later, he had surgery on his abdomen.

Of course he got a new job in there.

And had to travel to California the third week.

We decided to buy a house.

No, rent.

No, buy.

No, rent.

Maybe buy?

No, rent.

We stopped looking because of the hospitalization then a pretty good option became available.

I still make stock, and yogurt, and a lot of other “special” food because we have some special dietary things that we need.

I can’t remember the last time I felt rested enough to make it an entire day.

And this is just the spark notes version.

Why do I go into all of this?

Because this is why I feel like God wants me to do this – talk to young wives and moms. Because I know if I was thinking that “maybe this whole marriage thing isn’t so bad” there are others out there too.

Now that’s not say we haven’t always had our moments.

But I LOVE to talk and read about marriage. We have been tweaking and working since before Day 1 to make our marriage as strong as possible. I read The Respect Dare and saw all those wives with all of those experiences working so hard and thought “Man, I’m so glad we’re working some of this out now.”

And I still am SO thankful.

But with the last 12 weeks, here is what I know.

Marriage is hard.

Even when it seems easy, it’s still hard.

Those are the moments that are being used to prepare you for when marriage is hard.

If you blissfully ignore each other or how you treat each other when things are easy, then you won’t know how to come together when things are hard. If you yell and scream and belittle… If you get mad over little things… If you don’t know how to communicate, especially respect, to your husband…

But if you work to love and respect each other when things are easy and rely on one another, when things are hard, those habits will be in place. It will make the hard EASIER.

Here’s the thing – everyone EXPECTS it to get hard at some point, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most people don’t know how to prepare for it, think it’s coming way down the road, think they are already prepared for it. think it’s already as hard as it’s going to get, and more.

It will get harder.

And maybe your marriage is ESPECIALLY hard. Addiction, jobs, finances – so many things pop up and make marriage EXTRA hard.

If there’s anything I’ve learned through this is that our world is sinful. And God doesn’t want bad things to happen to his children. But bad things happen because we are sinful. So God uses those things to shape and grow us.

He’s saying : Learn from me in the little things, and in the big things, you will never lose site of me.

Nina had a BEAUTIFUL post this week about hard marriages. And all marriages have their varying degree of difficulty. But the plan she lays out is super beneficial. Actually, I will write on Tuesday especially for moms of littl’ens about how to get some time with God. That’s actually what I set out to do today, and I think God had other plans.

Plans for me look in a mirror and admit some truth to myself, and then share with you all.

Plans to lighten the burden I feel of being pulled in a lot of directions.

Plans to grant me peace before beginning the next tasks of my day.

Plans for me to encourage you as you look at the BIG.

Remember the little things of the day – the conversations, how we ask for things – all prepare us for the big things – like 12 weeks of the craziest schedule you’ve ever had, mostly apart from each other, going through really hard things.

 

Go back in time to newly engaged you. What would you do back and tell yourself about marriage being hard and how to handle it? What would you share if a sister or a friend was getting married soon?