Steve and I have been pumped to start this series. A few weeks ago we introduced our “Walking on Wednesday” post as something that would cover our walk to be spiritually, physically, and emotionally fit with this new transition in our family. But in the past few weeks, we decided that was too broad of a topic and as the weeks passed by we struggled with which one to write about. Part of the series was going to be about our marriage and our family and the lessons we have learned, the ways we have overcome failure, and the things we do to keep our bond strong. We decided to stick with a focus on just that because there is a ton to write about.
Marriage has been a huge passion of mine for a long time. I never knew what I wanted to be in life, except for one thing – a wife. Before I even graduated high school, I was thinking about my future husband and how our marriage would be – full of romance, long conversations, and a lot of laughs. I know I put the most effort into my boyfriend relationships, which hindsight probably was not the best, but it was who I was. All my favorite movies were the romantic ones where the boy and girl didn’t like each other at first, then they became friends, and then they fell in love, then life would pull them apart and somehow bring them back together again with some beautifully fateful chance encounter. Somewhere along the lines, I began to believe that was how love would be (and probably why I dated all the wrong guys). I believed that it was supposed to be hard at first and then bliss in the end. That we would have to work on our dating relationship, but once we got married it would be a forever commitment and that meant we would be more in love.
In May of 2000 I enlisted into the Air Force, but because of my desires to “live it up” one more time in my college town, I asked to do delayed enlistment so they couldn’t take me until March of 2001. It was that September when I met the man who would later become my first husband; at a frat party at another college. We dated all through my basic training, tech school, and one year at my first duty station in Georgia. There were signs along the way that pointed toward a break up, but because the distance and the amount of time we had been together, the next natural step was marriage. So, in September of 2002, we got married in a beautiful ceremony in Virginia. It wasn’t long after moving in together that we realized that we barely knew each other and because we were so young and immature we didn’t want to work on knowing each other. Our marriage was on the rocks since our honeymoon when we tried going on a 12 hour car trip to Florida and barely said a word. He didn’t have much to say, but that was who he was. He was quiet and content to not talk a lot. Whereas, I needed that conversation.
In 2004 we decided to get divorced. We decided this without going to counseling and without separating first. Our justification was that we weren’t “in love” anymore so what’s the point. Nobody could change that for us, not even a counselor, so why try. Our divorce was quick and without much fight from either one of us. I know that makes divorce sound so easy and painless, but I am just sparing the details. There were many nights where my heart was just broken and I would cry all night. And there were many days when I wouldn’t eat and would just cry all day. I felt like I was doing something wrong by giving up on my marriage, but I couldn’t see our relationship changing so that became the motivation to go through with the divorce. Instead of actively working on it, I assumed it was done, so we were done.
It took me many, many months to heal from my divorce. In many ways I wasn’t healed for years afterwards, but the one way I began to heal was to read books and read The Bible. The one book I read almost immediately was “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. It was exactly what I needed to read at that time and exactly what I should’ve read before I got married. It was everything I needed to read about what I did wrong in my marriage. And there was a ton. I needed to take ownership because I let it fail without much of a fight. When marriages are struggling, I think it is so easy to focus on what we aren’t getting from our spouses that we lose sight of what we aren’t doing right in our own roles in the marriage. This was a HUGE slap in the face for me. I knew that I was so focused on my emptiness that I wasn’t seeing what I wasn’t doing for my husband. I never stopped to consider that maybe he didn’t actively love me because I didn’t actively love him. This was a lesson for me that has stuck with me ever since. Marriage is work! It’s the exact opposite of the movies. It should be fairly easy in the courting and dating period, but when you are married, you are MARRIED!!! You have made the commitment to stay together through all the ugly. So yes, that is when marriage is darn hard because there WILL be ugly. I promise you. But that is why you made the commitment in the first place, right? You have decided that your spouse is the one person you can get through all the ugly with. You have decided that you will love each other despite the flaws and you promise to never give up. So don’t. Actively love your spouse each day. Even through all the ugly.
This series is going to be about not giving up. I often think that I went through that divorce so that I have this story to share. My passion for marriage is even stronger because of it. When I said my vows to Steve I meant every bit of it. I will not give up with him. We have had some rough times and there are times where I have almost lost the will to fight, but I always go back to this book. I must actively love him. That’s my role. That’s my promise. Even when I don’t want to; I have to do it.
So for this first “Walking on Wednesday” marriage post, I would love to gift one reader with “The Five Love Languages” book. Comment on the blog at the bottom of this post for a chance to be entered to win this book. I will announce the winner on next weeks “Walking on Wednesday” blog post :-)
Warmly,
Stacy
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