Here a few musings on marriage that I have been mulling over the last few weeks:
If you don’t marry someone who wants to have an awesome marriage, I don’t know if it’s possible for it to happen. If your spouse doesn’t want to be crazy in love, if your spouse doesn’t want to love you the way you need to be loved, if your spouse doesn’t want to put you ahead of themselves and make your dreams theirs, I’m just not sure it’s possible to have an incredible marriage. In-loveness isn’t something that lasts on its own (obviously). If both partners in the marriage don’t strive for that, it will fade. So if you’re reading this and you’re not married, I would recommend waiting to find someone who wants the same kind of marriage you do. I know Josh loves me, but I just can’t figure out why he wants to love me well. Not all men do. He does. It baffles me. I’ve asked him why, and he said it’s because it’s the example Jesus Christ gave us. “Husbands, love your wives the way Christ loves the church.” But, why does that matter to him when it matters to so few other Christian husbands? Needless to say, I’m very thankful.
Recently, I found myself getting lazy when it comes to my physical appearance around Josh late at night. We would both get home from whatever filled our days and then I would quickly go and change and put my pjs on or a t-shirt and workout pants. I realized that it wasn’t cool of me to get all dolled up to be around other people, and then to be “cozy” and “lazy” around him. So, I’ve been waiting until just before bed to get dressed down. I want to look nice for Josh more than anyone else. Sometimes, I even put perfume on right before I climb in bed. Why not? I want him to smell it more than anyone else.
When Josh comes home, I go to the door to greet him. I usually run and I make sure I smile and let him know how genuinely happy I am to see him (which isn’t hard at all). I’ve always done this, but now that Buddy is in our lives, I do it with even more resolve. Partially because it feels SO good when I get home and Buddy runs to greet me and is so super excited, and partially because now I have to compete with Buddy when Josh gets home. A mans dog shouldn’t be more welcoming and excited to see him than his wife. Right?
Everyone always says, “communication is key to a successful marriage” and they are right. What’s interesting is that I find that when I am upset about even the smallest thing, I don’t like to talk. I like to clam up. It’s the strangest thing... and it makes me love my husband even more when he doesn’t ignore my quiet moods but instead presses into them to get to the source of my pseudo-silence. He doesn’t have to. If I’m not willing to share what is on my heart, it’s not his responsibility to get it out of me. But he loves me, so he does. He did this week. and then he listened. and then I cried and said lots of things that weren’t true, lies, that needed to be defeated with the truth. Amazingly, when I voiced the things going on in my heart, he didn’t even have to say anything because as soon as they were said I could sense their silliness and their untruth. If he hadn’t pressed through, though, who knows how long the untruths would have slowly chipped away at our in-loveness, and how long the lies would have gone unspoken and believed to be true.
and finally, I’m really excited because we are going to be celebrating 2 years of marriage in a couple of months which means we’re out of the normal “honeymoon stage” which means people will stop dismissing our love as newly-wedded bliss that won’t last! Huzzah!
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