Marriage is....

Let's face it, there are a lot of articles, blogs, Facebook posts out there that act like marriage is easy peasy.  For those of us in reality, we know this isn't the case.  Marriage isn't always great, but if you love your spouse it is worth the fight.  It's as if most of us go into marriage thinking getting to the marriage is the hard part and the staying married is the easy part.  But you quickly find out that is not the case at all.  Bryon and I have been tested in every possible way and are still here fighting for each other, so I have decided it is time to shed a little bit of light on the reality of marriage.  Maybe, just maybe if we start being honest about marriage, people will take a second before rushing in or assuming you can stop working at it once you have the rings.  Here it is, my take on the truth of marriage!

Let's start at the beginning shall we.  I met Bryon back in my young days, 8 long years ago.  We had a blast from the beginning.  If you have ever watched the movie Fever Pitch, that best describes my life during the first year with Bryon.

For those who don't know Bryon, he is a little bit obsessed with his Detroit Tigers.  Yes, if you haven't heard, Bryon runs the Tigers....in his fantasy land in his head.  Anyways, we spent our first spring/summer/fall going to MANY games and in true Fever Pitch form, we went to the playoffs and World Series that 2006 fall.  We even made the Detroit Free Press with a half page picture of us at the World Series for game 2, when it snowed on us.  However, for those of you who know Detroit Tigers World Series history, you know they choked and lost.  

So in the depths of Bryon's baseball depression, I must have been the bright smile he needed and we were married in May of 2007.  I can't put the exact date because I like to keep Bryon on his toes and this would give him an outlet to come find it.  Once we were married reality set it.  We quickly found out marriage was really hard and you couldn't just coast through it and survive.  Our first year was compounded with Bryon working an off shift and me working for a hockey team and spending most of my weekends with very long hours at the hockey rink.  We quickly started to put our own wants and needs first and focus less on each other.  Those cute cards, scavenger hunts, and little things we did for each other seemed to fade away and we both just became selfish. 

This was our first year of marriage and it had many many bumps in the road but we somehow made it through and celebrated our first year with the news Miss Kayla would be joining our life.  While we both made changes and attempted to put our marriage first, we definitely weren't perfect and we still struggled.  Our marriage seemed to be a roller coaster ride, when we were on the uphill we had a blast together but on those downhills you never knew what to expect.  But we were somehow managing to stay afloat and fight on.  Then Abby came along and put us through yet another test.  

The way Bryon and I dealt with Abby being hospitalized as a baby was different for each of us.  As a mom, I felt I had to be there and put all my focus on Abs.  Bryon immersed himself in work because he was too worried to be too close.  Neither of us were dealing with it in a wrong way, we just simply forgot to be there for each other.  We lived separate lives and it only built from that time.  I spent Abby's first year focusing on her and not on my marriage.  And I think Bryon would agree he did the same in his own way.  It is crazy to me to look back and wonder how we lived such a snow globe life.  We looked truly happy from the outside.  And I think if we didn't look too deeply into it we thought we were.  We grew comfortable just going around doing our own thing and not putting taking care of each other.

Well what I have learned from that is you can only run from the problems you refuse to acknowledge for so long.  And we must be pros because we pretended for almost three years.  For three years we lived as a family but basically ran separate lives that occasionally overlapped!  How crazy is that?  When we went out and did stuff together we had a great time.  We always do, but we weren't putting each other first.  

see life of the party

So because I respect my husband and myself, I won't go into the details of every crappy thing we have done to each other (I know those of you who love to gossip are dying right now!) but we have both put each other through the ringer.  I still look back at some of the stuff I have done to Bryon and wonder why the heck he has stuck around (other than to help him get stuff off the top shelf) and I'm sure Bryon looks at things he has done and wonders why I'm still here with him (other than to pick up stuff I drop on the ground).  But we realized after 5 years of marriage, YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO WORK AT IT!  We came to a point where I think we can both honestly say we thought we were done, but instead we took a step back and looked at the bigger picture.  

We looked to ourselves and what we could do differently to change this marriage.  That marriage is supposed to be something you do together and yes at times you have to fight tooth and nail to keep it going.  But if you truly love your spouse and see that those amazingly good times outweigh the really bad times, you will fight for it.  And we made that decision it was worth the fight.  I think we were both pretty hesitant when we first made this decision, but these two motivated us.  

Our marriage is far from perfect, but we are fighting and it isn't always easy but those amazing moments when you get a date night out or a family trip to the zoo they remind you why it is worth it.  We still do some really crappy things to each other, but we are also fighting harder for each other.  We are taking that extra breathe before jumping to conclusions or saying something to just upset the other.  We are making the choice daily to leave the past in the past and start fresh.  It is hard and we both occasionally slip on this one but we are getting better everyday. While we may have been hesitant to start this fight, we see it is worth it.  

But it isn't going to magically happen, we both have to put the effort in.  It means compromising more often and giving up things you want to do occasionally.  It means putting in the work to plan a date night at least once a month to reconnect and get away from it all.  That is a huge one for us, when we skip those we get all out of funk!  The world today is full of instant gratification and I think it has seeped into our mindset of marriage.  People think if they have to work at their marriage they must be with the wrong person.  I'm sure Bryon and I thought that at some point in our past, but we have realized EVERY marriage takes work.  So there is my long winded story and my little bit of advice.  Pleas fight for your marriage and put in the work.  You will see amazing results and realize how worth the fight it is. 

Disclaimer- I am far from an expert on perfect marriages, but sometimes the best advice can come from those of us who have hit the bottom and clawed our way back up.