Halfway to ten more

 

Photo credit: Ben P.

It seems like I just hit publish on my Ten Amazing Years series finale, celebrating my first decade of marriage to Lee.

As of today, we are now halfway through the next ten.  I can mainly just say "ditto" to what I wrote back then.  But I will add that we are beginning to feel a little less like newlyweds.  In a good way.

Recently, a young wife of five years that we know and love mentioned that people have told her and her husband that they will feel less like newlyweds once they have kids.  She was discouraged by this and asked if that had been our experience.  We took it as a good sign that she chose to ask us.

I loved her question.  I would say that the most challenging times in our marriage have been the seasons where our circumstances magnified our differences more than our similarities.  One day Ben asked me about something.  I answered him, and it became apparent he had already discussed the matter with his dad when he replied, "How did you and Dad get so creepily on the same page?" So clearly, parenting hasn't provided the greatest challenges to our marital bliss.  Nor have finances, something I thank God for frequently!

We definitely have our different ways of approaching certain things.  Sometimes we set off a chain reaction of panic in each other because of our knee-jerk responses in those situations.  There is a very simple truth I try to remember when I am tempted to try to swoop in and grab control.  We are called to bear with one another in love.  If it means I have to live with the clutter another day so that Lee can be at peace with not losing track of something important, so what?

We drive each other crazy sometimes.  But I love him like crazy.  It just works.