Hard Years

You know there was a line in a movie and an old man was talking to a younger married man and he was talking about his marriage and his wife who had died. He said something to the effect that no marriage is perfect, there are hard years and good years, then he said, "We ended on a great year!" I love that line! But the truth is that is Hollywood and that was some writer's sitting around a table hashing out the perfect words for him to say so women every where would tear up and look at their husbands and say, "Why don't you say things like that?" and the men could sit there and think, "Some chick wrote that, cause no guy would say that to another guy!" I know I am exaggerating somewhat but you get my point. I have been married to James for 13 1/2 years now. I don't think it is good and bad years of marriage so much as LIFE. We don't see many people anymore, between my health and his job. We have NO social life at all. (Not that we had a huge one before, but we had people over all the time and was always at church and I saw people every day at my two jobs and around town paying bills and shopping. LIFE) Now for over three 1/2 years the bedroom and living room have been my whole world. That takes a tole mentally no matter how you look at it, try to handle it or manage it, there is only so much CHEERFUL you can do! And who do you suppose (Not in the movies but in the real world) gets the brunt of that? Who sees the ugly, the sad, the depressed, the tears, the angry, the why me, the today I give up, the I CAN"T TAKE ANY MORE PAIN!! days, the weepy "I'm sorry, I'm a bad wife and mother" days, the guilty days because I can't do what I should do for my family...MY Dear Sweet Husband and Children who are already carrying the whole load! Are all our days like that!!!??? NO! We have good days! We even have fun and great days! We have adapted and learned to spend time when (around my medication schedule) and where (Often all five of us on the bed, dresser, bookshelf..in our bedroom because I can't get out of bed) but I bet we laugh harder than most families at the silliest things! And I have two teens who seek me out, close the bedroom door and spend up to two hours at a time talking to me voluntarily! My husband and I don't go out on date nights, and I worry about his health with the burdens and stress he is carrying. But we have a sweet friendship and I can tell him ANYTHING! We talk for hours at night. Sometimes straight through till his 5am job so he has to take a nap in the afternoon because he was up all night soothing my fears and worries. We are NOT a perfect couple by any means. And I think anyone who tells you they are is lying to you or themselves. Because there are no perfect people so if no one is perfect, how can you have TWO imperfect humans live together and have a perfect marriage? Impossible! That's like saying two wrongs make a right. Two imperfects do not make a perfect. Not possible. For instance, tempers...we all have one, whether we want to admit it or not, whether we can control it, have a short or long fuse, we all have one PERIOD. Now with my husband and I, when we first got married we had a MARVELOUS first year! Then I got pregnant and was put on total bed rest with a 4 1/2yr old. I..am..a..RED..HEAD! I have a short fuse and I can blow hot and fast! BOOM!! "THERE SHE BLOWS!" My dear husband is the calm quiet type. He takes forever to let out what is bothering him and it's like pulling rusty screws with a hammer!! Nigh on impossible! And we had know each other for 13 years before we married and had NEVER had one fight! And all of the sudden we are fighting like cats and dogs! We were like two teenagers who had just gotten married and we were both in our 30's! I could not understand what was happening! Then my husband figured ME out! Something no one had ever done in 31 years! I didn't even realize it! He looked at me and said, you are like a box of bottle rockets, you light one and it will go off fast and explode. If no says anything and leaves you alone for a bit to cool off. No more rockets. But every time someone tries to calm you down it's like throwing another match in the box. I looked at him with my eyes and mouth hanging open, not sure whether he was insulting me or trying to pick a fight or what! He said, I think all you need is a chance to blow off steam and I've been trying to fix your problems and you just get more frustrated because I'm not listening, I'm talking. So now when I explode he just looks at me and even though I feel like an idiot and can't seem to stop the flow of words rushing out about whatever is bugging me. Be it the wet mail or the busted dryer or how late a book is I ordered. He just waits for me to get it out of my system and then I sit quiet for a bit and the Lord starts working on me and I end up going back and apologizing to everyone and trying harder next time to control my tongue. BUT, WE as a couple don't explode all the time because he knows it's not about him. So is this a Hard Year or a Good Year for us? It has been both. Every year we have a blend of both. If it was all Good we would stop needing and depending on God and each other! If it was all hard, we would probably quit, so God gives us both. No more of either than we need or can handle. And we have each other...that bonus makes it worth everything!