Marriage is Hard Work...and other marital cliches I can now vouch for

"Marriage is hard work."

I remember the thoughts that would run through my mind when people would say that.  There they would be, humbly admitting a struggle in an attempt to find common ground and I just didn't get it.  I'd nod politely and agree, but would think, admittedly a little too smugly, "No.  It's really not.  Ours isn't, at least."

And then something happened.  Or rather, a lot of somethings.  

We dealt with pain and loss. We dealt with happiness and gain.  We traveled.  We served alongside each other.  We had a child.  Jobs changed.  We made major financial decision and big purchases. Churches changed.  Business trips seemed to last forever.  We had another child.  We tried to sell our house four times and finally moved.  Friendships ended.  Friendships started.  We faced joy and sorrow, ups and downs, ebbs and flows. 

In other words, time passed and LIFE happened.  And as it did, marriage became...well, hard work.  

I remember the day I had the epiphany.  We had just come back from our trip to Seattle and Vancouver.  We had spent five days together and it had been great!  We hadn't fought or argued over anything.  Even still, there was this sinking feeling inside of me that I couldn't push away.  It was the feeling that for two people who had just come back from five days away together without kids, we sure didn't seem to be very connected.  I was starting to understand another cliche I'd heard all my life:

"People change.  He/She is not the person I married."

I always chalked that up to a lazy bunch of bunk.  It was what people said when they wanted out and didn't want to take any of the responsibility.  

But as I thought it through, I realized something: OF COURSE PEOPLE CHANGE.  How can they not?  How can someone encounter new life-altering experiences and not be fundamentally shifted?  Yes, there are always innate traits and in general one's personality is pretty set, but there is a whole lot of wiggle room in there.  Every time a major life event occurs - a birth, a death, a move, a new job, an illness -  it effects everything from your day to day routine to your outlook to your priorities.  Change changes you.  And therefore, it alters your relationships.  It's inevitable and it's rarely avoidable.  What is up to you is whether it'll be for better or for worse.  Then it's up to your spouse to decide if he or she is going to stick out that little tidbit of your vows.

I was oblivious to this at first.  We went through some pretty major shifts in the first years, but somehow we'd bounced back and adjusted pretty well.  Then suddenly, in less than eleven months, we had a second kid, I had a new stepmom, we painstakingly sold our house and bought a new one, and my mom had a lumpectomy.  I kept thinking, "well, things will return to normal when Luke gets out of the demanding newborn and infant stage."  When they didn't, I thought, "Well, we just moved.  It's been a ton of stress and it'll get better after we settle in."  Months ticked by and it finally dawned on me:  Things had changed and we had changed.  The old normal was long gone...and we weren't exactly flourishing in the midst of the new normal.  

For the first time in my life, if I squinted hard enough, I could sort of kind of see how people say they grew apart and fell out of love.  And frankly, it scared me to death.  

So, what did we do?  Well, we started with what I like to call a "comin' to Jesus" meeting.  David and I don't fight much.  There have probably only been about a dozen big doozies in our ten years of marriage, but this was one of them.  Of course it masked itself as something totally different (doesn't it always?) but as we laid in bed in the dark we slowly started sharing truths and deep-seated feelings that hadn't been spoken aloud in far too long.  

Naturally, it smarted a little bit.  But then, slowly, we tried on another marital cliche:  "It's the little things."  

We both started - and I know this is going to sound crazy, so hold on to your seat - putting forth some effort in our marriage.  Not giving each other our end-of-the-day exhausted selves that were worn out from giving to everyone else first.  Not checking out as soon as the kids were in bed and turning to our various screens.  I mean actually starting to behave like our marriage was the crazy important priority that it is.  

It certainly did not come in the form of grand romantic gestures for us.  Instead, it was things like sending a "I'm praying for you" text or the always sexy, "Thanks for taking out the garbage" text.  It was taking two seconds to say a proper goodbye in the morning or greeting each other with a hello kiss.  It meant asking about the other's day and listening to the answer and then staying current and following up.  It meant expressing gratitude and appreciation.  It meant swallowing snarkiness and criticism.  It meant praying for the other person and with the other person.  It meant getting involved with other Christian couples who supported our marriage and leading a small group to hold ourselves accountable.  It meant cutting back on or getting rid of relationships or things that didn't edify our marriage.  

It also meant adding back a regular date night.  That was HUGE for us.  Every break we'd gotten for months had become about finishing a project on the new house.  Those are okay from time to time, but we needed a chance to dress up, go out, look each other in the eyes, and have adult conversations.  We needed to break away and be us.  Not the "us" with kids or bills or to-do lists, but the "us" who have been best friends for 14 years with all of our inside jokes and quirky idiosyncrasies that only we understand.  As one pastor put it, "I have never seen a couple in marriage counseling that was having a regular, weekly date night."  Never stop dating your spouse.  Cliche, yes, but it matters, y'all.  

As I write this I realize how fitting it is that it was a lot of little acts of kindness that brought our marriage back around, because it had been a lot of little acts of unkindness, or it's sometimes-worse cousin apathy, that had gotten us to the state of disconnect that we were in.  We didn't get to that point overnight, and we didn't recover from it overnight either.  But, anything worth having is worth working for.  We're not experts at it by any means, but we're trying.  

I know that what worked for us won't work for everyone.  I know there are people out there who have suffered wounds much deeper and whose disagreements are much more serious and complicated than ours.  I'm not naive.  In fact, having grown up around it, I'm a little more familiar with that reality than I'd like to be.  To those people I would offer this:  FIGHT FOR IT.  Run as fast as you can to a godly Christian therapist and do whatever it takes.  

I realize that some marriages fall apart very loudly and chaotically, but as for most of them?  I think most just quietly starve to death while we're busy investing in every other thing in our own little worlds.  If we put half the effort into our relationships as we do our kids, our jobs, our volunteer positions, our hobbies...heck, even our trashy TV watching and Facebook following...we would be amazed at the results.  At least I was. 

To close, I'll leave you with a quote I heard from a friend:  "When you ask a newlywed couple how things are going in their relationship, they may respond with 'Well, there are good days and bad days.'  When you ask people who have been married a long time, they'll say, 'Well, there are good years and bad years.'"  

Ain't that the truth?  We've had some really awesome years, but we've had a few tough ones as well.  I haven't loved every minute but I've never regretted saying "I Do" to my best friend.  And I also know this:  Marriage is hard work...but OH MY is it worth it.  

Happy 10th Anniversary to My Favorite.  Thanks for thinking me worth the effort. ;)