I haven’t written a personal post in a while. I’m not really sure why. I guess I just don’t feel like I have that much to say. And I have been crazy busy with trying to keep up with being a mom and running a business. Yada yada. I will always be busy. I have finally realized that. If I ever am going to read anything or write anything, I have to make a conscious decision that other things just aren’t going to get done. ANYWHO.
Marriage. It’s been on my mind a lot lately. Marriage is something I took for granted for the longest time. It was just something most people did. I heard it was hard, but it really wasn’t hard for me. I heard the divorce rate was high, but I didn’t really know anyone getting divorced, so I assumed it wasn’t actually happening as much as I heard. But then I got older. Today is my 13th wedding anniversary, so I have a few years under my belt. I have finally realized that it is actually an incredibly hard thing. And I have started to see many marriages around me crumble. All of it put together makes me want to cry. I don’t want marriage to be hard. I don’t want it to be hard for other people. I just want to go back to being blissfully ignorant.
To be fair, the hardship that I have experienced with being married is all on me. Pete is the most amazing, patient, kind and loving person I know. He should have stopped putting up with my crap years ago. But he hasn’t (thankfully). Over the past few years, being married has stopped being exciting for me, and I have stopped feeling “fireworks” over our relationship. Somehow I started believing the lie that this meant I should look for happiness and fulfillment elsewhere because DANGIT I DESERVE TO FEEL HAPPY. This is how I have lived for the past few years. And it hasn’t made me happy at all. And it’s not made Pete happy either.
I am reading (very slowly, mind you) The Journey of Desire, by John Eldridge. I am only halfway through it, but feel as if it has helped me discover something life changing. He says that God created each of us with this desire for passion, love, beauty, excitement and more life than we get to experience. We have this yearning for something more that we can’t put our finger on. Our world/culture has told us that the pinnacle of happiness, reaching this sought after perfection, is finding a perfect lover. Every movie we watch and book we read tells us the lie that if we could just find that love that lasts a lifetime, we will be perfectly happy forever. Except there are no perfect lovers, and no perfect relationships. So we try one out, and when we don’t “feel” happy anymore, we assume that we haven’t found the perfect love for us, and since we deserve to be happy, we move on to find the next one, or the next thing (anything to fill the desires we are feeling). But still, people rarely feel fulfilled or genuinely happy!
Reading that, and mulling it around for a while, has truly helped me. I am a very passionate person, and feel desires very strongly. It scared me when I didn’t feel them for Pete as strongly. However, they never should have been for him! God made me that way to draw me to Him, to yearn for love by my Father, and to yearn for a perfect life in heaven. I will not find perfection in an earthly lover. Neither will anyone else.
That being said, God knew what He was doing when he had me meet and marry Pete at such a young age. I had no idea what I was getting into. But he has proven to be exactly who I need to navigate this hard and crazy life with. I can’t depend on him for my happiness, but am so thankful that he does, in fact, make me happy so much of the time that I started to expect it constantly. I am thankful that I am learning so much about love from him, and how he loves me so well, even when I am not making it easy. And I am happy to be learning that love in a relationship has nothing to do with how I am feeling at the time, or how much happiness I am “getting.” It’s about sacrificing, and trusting that the feelings will follow.
I feel so blessed to be a part of a marriage where I am allowed to wrestle with these things, and learn more about myself and what love really is. I am glad that marriage has been hard, because it’s made me grow and learn.
I am so thankful for Pete and for the opportunity to be married to him for 13 years! I may have JUST NOW figured out that we don’t have the iconic, perfect love that the world says exists (but doesn’t), but I do have a pretty great man at my side and I know I couldn’t find anyone better for me.
{angela}
