This blog is primarily for the married folk, but anyone can benefit.
Lately I have found several very positive Twitter accounts to follow. It all started with Chattanooga's @firstthings, the account for First Things First, an org that focuses on positive family activities, stronger relationships, better marriages. They reposted something from an account called @themarriagebed.
You might have been skeptical about that account name, but I was intrigued. Were there really Twitter users out there that focus on building better marriages? Yes!!
These users are focused on building relationships between husbands and wives. They don't dance around the topic of sex or divorce or anything. They talk plain, but with respect for marriage.
I found all of these accounts after reading about several broken marriages on Facebook. I won't name names, because it's not my place, and it doesn't matter anyways. I don't know the stories or the reasons why the marriages failed, and I don't need to. What hit me, though, is that they failed.
There are some days when I sit back, and take a good look at my marriage. I've been married for 2 and a half years. We've been together for about 7 years. We fight, we disappoint each other, we both forget to do things that we've been asked to do (and yes, it drives us both nuts!). But we also have grown a lot together. Before we had even gotten engaged, we had already seen pretty much the worst in each other.
Jordan stuck by me during a medication-induced crazy period (by some miracle). We helped each other with the deaths of loved ones, bad grades, bad jobs, failed friendships. Jordan had seen my ugly cry very early on, and still loves me!
Even right after we got engaged, and we were in a car accident. I broke my wrist, and Jordan ended up getting his appendix removed. What a start, right?
Since we've been married, we have grown so much... sometimes I don't recognize us from 2 years ago.
Jordan travels a lot for work. He is out of the country about 4 times a year, and sometimes he can't call me for days at a time. Early on in our marriage, this fact was VERY hard to me to cope with, even though he'd been doing the same thing before we got married. Several times our long-distance phone calls ended with me in tears and both of us hurting, and it was my fault. Part of me was jealous that he got to travel while I was stuck at home, and part of me resented the fact that he loved his job so much and enjoyed traveling. A very irrational part of me felt that he loved his job more than he loved me.
It has taken a while, but I'm at the point now where his traveling is ok. I still don't like being home by myself for 2 weeks, and I don't like that I can't always talk to him when he's gone. But I'm ok with him being gone. Dare I say it? I might even enjoy the time to myself when I don't have to worry about making dinner (cereal is a staple when he's gone), I don't have to worry about washing dishes (cause I hardly use any), and it takes a lot longer to build up enough laundry to need to run a load. And I can read to my heart's desire without feeling like I'm ignoring him.
I had to change how I reacted to things. I knew that all along, but I have this silly stubborn streak that didn't want to change, I just wanted HIM to change. Now it's ok for him to be gone, or to work late or over weekends. It's not always ideal, but I deal. (see what I did there?)
Now before you go thinking that I had to do all the changing, Jordan has been working on things too. He makes the effort to at least text me if he's going to be home late, most times he calls. When he does have time off, he spends as much of it with me as he can. When he's away, he calls when he can, even if he ends up falling asleep on the phone. Those are the little things that show me he appreciates the changes I've made.
I like to think we have a pretty fantastic marriage, and it just keeps getting better. But every marriage can improve, right? There's no such thing as a perfect marriage. But that doesn't mean we stop trying to achieve perfection. It's the journey that makes it all worth while.
So I want to challenge any married person who might be reading this: Even if you think your marriage is great, don't settle. When we become complacent, thats when we get lazy and the problems get bigger. Always keep working on things. Whether you need to work on communication or intimacy or trust or just taking turns washing dishes, make the effort together.
Don't be afraid to get ideas. The people I listed above are good resources.
That's just something that has been on my heart today. And with Valentine's Day coming up, maybe this is just what somebody needed to hear.
