“Happy Anniversary L, Thank you for 10 happy years”
“Ummm, babe, we’ve been married for 15. “Yeah, but if you add in the days we’ve been miserable, we’ve only been happily married about 10.”
That was an actual conversation Michael and I had upon waking on our 15th wedding anniversary. I told him as long as the happy years always out number the miserable ones, we might just beat the statistics.
I think after 26 years of marriage, the count is now probably somewhere around, 19 happy – 7 miserable. Our happy years are gaining!!! Yay!!!!
There will be rough seasons
Let’s face it. All married couples go through rough seasons. We all go through spells of wondering if we really made the right choice in picking our spouse and sometimes why we even got married at all.
All marriages, just like building a home, go through a series of stages before you are fully able to sit back with a glass of wine, look around at what you have built, with a smile that says, “we did it.”
I think anyone who has ever built a house would agree that before that final coat of paint was rolled or that final piece of carpet was laid, there were many hours of tantrums, tears and thoughts of just chunking the project and renting an apartment forever. Building anything from the ground up, whether it be a home, a business or a life where two separate individuals come together as one, is hard work. HARD WORK.
But many contractors will tell you the key to any sound structure is a firm and unwavering foundation and the secret to keeping it structurally sound for years to come is lots and lots of maintenance.
Are you following me?
So…
If you are in the season of marriage and you’re feeling like there is just no way you’re ever going to sit back with your glass of wine and smile, and the thought of burning down the house and renting an apartment, ALONE is sounding better every day…
Please know you are not alone! Allow me to share with you the building stages of the Spellman family.
The honeymoon stage
Michael and I dated almost five years before we married, so we were ready to start a family immediately after saying I do. Luckily we had our passionate, infatuation, romantic, can’t do anything wrong and wild sex honeymoon stage during the five years before we actually got married.
(sorry kids, but you’re old enough to know the truth now- haha)
Thank goodness we had those years because we had our Caroline almost 9 months to the day after saying our vows, our Ellen followed just 16 months later, and Michael and Ivey within four years after her.
So to say the least, we spent our honeymoon stage of marriage being exhausted parents.
I went from being a fun, hot, long haired, size 6, a new wife who loved sex, to a tired, frumpy, short haired, size 10 mother of four, who dared Michael to touch me. That stage of being a mother was priceless! I loved nothing more than being a Mama to all my babies. Unfortunately, that stage of my marriage was a blur. Not good, not bad, just a blur.
The reality stage
Fast forward several years and the kids were all in school and I was a housewife. FREEDOM!!!!!
I felt like a got a little of my grove back, but by then, reality had set in and Michael and I were in the thick of it. Mortgage, bills, homework, sporting events, school functions and the fun of having teenagers.
The stress of adult responsibilities had arrived and neither of us handled it very well.
Communication?
There was none. We both expected the other to know how to meet our every need like in the early years and we both acted like immature asses when our needs were not fulfilled.
And then there was the blame game. When money was tight, it was his fault for not making enough and my fault for spending too much. When the kids acted up, it was his fault for being so stern and might fault for being too lenient. When the cars broke down it was his fault for not maintaining them and my fault for bad driving.
Feeling a little more normal now?
The “perfect family” stage
Most of the five years of accumulated misery that Michael talked about on our 15th anniversary was during those years. It seemed that for every week of marriage that we were happy, we had two weeks of not being able to look at each other or speak without arguing. There was no holding hands, no sweet conversations and hardly any sex.
The worst part was that we were active in our church and in the kid’s school. Everyone new of the Spellmans and everyone thought we were the perfect family. We continued through life with big smiles, we threw parties, had kids sleepovers, hosted bible studies and even gave council to struggling newlyweds. The show that we put on was so good that even our own children thought we were happy. The truth was, I had never felt so alone, so confused and so mad at God in my whole life!
Why would he put this man in my life, groom me to be an example for young wives and mothers, only to have me end up divorced with four children at 40 years old?
This stage of marriage was horrible. I don’t think either of us had ever felt so unappreciated, so unwanted and so unloved.
The throw in the towel stage
It’s during this stage of marriage that most couples give up and throw in the towel. They either get a divorce or decide to stay together for the kid’s sake, living more as roommates than lovers. That’s where we were; roommates, just trying to get through another day.
When you have reached this point, the hopelessness is overwhelming and all you can think is “what the hell happened to us, how did we get here?” You were once two people who were madly in love and couldn’t keep your hands off each other and now you’re either living separately or alone under the same roof because you have become disillusioned.
Yes, disillusioned. You’re not realizing that this is just a stage. An awful, AWFUL stage of marriage that many (not all) couples go through, but can and will get through if they can hang in there.
If you and your spouse can make it through this stage, you will most likely make it to the next, which is the wonderful stage of acceptance understanding and mutual respect. You both now realize that both of you did the best you knew to do and you really are on the same team. You are no longer choosing to stay together because of romantic infatuation or for the purpose of raising children. You’ve chosen to stay together because you love each other.
You are choosing to stay together because you love each other stage
I can’t tell you how comfortable this phase of marriage really is. I’m not saying its perfect. Michael and I still have our seasons and at times I still want to throat punch him. But I can’t imagine not spending the rest of my life with him after all we have been through; after all it took to build our family … our life.
We’ve shared incredibly fun times, like buying our first home, the birth of our children, being the loudest cheerleaders at their sporting events, making our home the landing spot for all their friends and watching them drive off for the first time, moving them into college and all the precious moments in between.
But we’ve also shared and held each other through horribly sad times as well, like when the economy tanked and we worked together to save our home, the death of his parents and the death of my mother and brother.
Whether good or bad, it was sharing times like those as well as the simple mundane moments, like suppers around the dinner table, loving our little dog, Riley, praying over sick children, car rides to sporting events, being Mr. an Mrs. Santa, the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny. It’s the eventful, simple and yes, even the miserable moments that built most of the first half of our life.
Those memories are the threads that sewed us together as one.
Now we’re over the hump … WE MADE IT TO THE SECOND HALF!
Let’s have a glass of wine and enjoy our money before the grandkids come stage
The kids are pretty much grown, and we only have one still in college. Our money is slowly becoming ours again! The normal stresses that cause many material problems in the early years, such as raising kids and finances are now gone.
We’re now free to just enjoy the life we’ve spent 31 years building.
We’re both settled and comfortable in our relationship, and the need for constant validation and grand romantic gestures like in the dating phase are no longer required. There is no more sulking and pouting for what we don’t get and there are no more guessing games as to what the other wants. We simply tell each other our desires and work through whatever situation comes up.
If you are in the throw in the towel stage, but …
1. You know your marriage was built on a firm foundation
2. You once loved each other more than life
3. You just don’t know how you got to where you are now….
Hang on and ask God for patience and wisdom!
You can make it. I promise.