Marriage is the best

I have several young friends getting married soon. Girls who I have watched grow up since babies and little children. I am SO excited for them! I still consider myself a newlywed and not super experienced in marriage. We’ve dealt with some hard things and some bad. There were a few times when I thought my marriage was over when it had barely had a chance to get started. A lot of sickness. Several miscarriages. A lot of past baggage to hurdle. Job uncertainty and wondering where money would come from. So much immaturity and selfishness on both of our parts.

Nonetheless, I would not trade one second of this for anything else. I love Aaron and the life God has given us so much. And I’ve watched God use those hard and terrible things to mold us both more into His image. It’s been humbling. I’m so grateful for that even if I didn’t always like going thru trials.

Anyway! Here are a few things that I’m thankful to have learned from three short years of marriage that I wanted to share.

Never talk bad about your husband (or anyone for that matter). Never make any exceptions for this. I determined this when we started dating. I watched the harm done when I saw spouses belittling each other and it hurt me to see it. There have been times when I needed counseling and had to speak honestly about Aaron’s faults to a trusted mentor (with Aaron’s knowledge which is important). And it didn’t make Aaron look good, but it wasn’t venting or gossip. You will absolutely have those times when you must go to a mentor for advice on your marriage relationship. You’ll face struggles and it’s so good to have one person who you know will be discrete and who will help you. But don’t vent or complain or gossip about your spouse. Honor your husband with your words and you will never regret it. His heart will safely trust in you. Complaining about him will cause others who love you to grow bitter toward him. They won’t be able to forgive him as quickly as you will.

Communicate. He will not be able to read your mind. I really thought that Aaron would just naturally know certain things. Like if I needed help he would know, right? Or if something was annoying to me he would know, right? Haha! The naivety! This is a small thing, but Aaron would always put his dirty clothes on the floor beside the laundry basket. Why in the world would he do that instead of putting it IN the basket? After months of picking his clothes up (with a lot of irritation, let me tell you), I finally asked him one day why leave the clothes for me to pick up? He was genuinely astonished that it bothered me and he hadn’t even noticed he was doing it in the first place. “Babe! Why didn’t you just say something months ago?!” If I would have just said something months before it would have saved me a lot of irritation. I realized he just didn’t think of those things. A true surprise to me haha! There have been a lot of similar things where I thought he should know what I wanted without me saying it. That just isn’t the case. 

Tell him when you’re upset. Don’t be silent. Don’t hold it in unless you are angry for selfish reasons; then get that one right with the Lord. But if something is truly wrong, you need to say it. Big things and little things. Keeping it in will create bitterness in your heart and Satan will use that to destroy you. Resentment will build and build until it spills over explosively. Don’t allow that to happen. Always, always talk to him. And do it with humility. Lashing out in anger isn’t communication, it’s just wrath and will hurt you both. So be sure to speak to him with humility.

As a side note, I’m a big communicator but Aaron isn’t at all. I cannot keep things in, but Aaron can go one million years without talking about things. He tended to view my idea of communicating as confrontation. Whereas I just viewed it as a good talk. That’s just something we had to learn about each other. Whether he liked it or not, I still communicated everything with him and over time we learned how to talk to each other. He had to learn how to open up, period. I had to learn how to be more gracious when I spoke because I am far more blunt than gracious. Poor Aaron got unintentionally insulted by me A LOT as I crashed thru “communicating” with him.

Marriage counseling is incredible. I feel like people assume it’s for those who are on the verge of divorce. It isn’t! It’s biblical and so good. Aaron and I had some things that we just couldn’t see eye to eye on, and then some other big issues. We went to our dear friend, Ray, for counseling and it was so great! Having Ray as a mediator was so good! He rebuked us where rebuke was needed and encouraged us where encouragement was needed. He helped us each to see our own faults and how we could compromise with each other. We were so thrilled and we’ve had counseling with him several times now. So if you have a recurring issue that you can’t seem to work out, get together with someone you really, really trust and counsel with them. Go to someone with Godly wisdom who will have the discretion to not just take your side and say what you want to hear.

No matter how much you love to serve your spouse and family, the day will come that you’re just sick of it. Dear Lord how much dirty laundry can one man make. How much food can one man eat. How much pee can one man land on the floor. Haha! It’s funny, but there will be days when it’s so not funny at all. I LOVE serving Aaron and Luna. Like I cannot even begin to express how much I love it. It’s crazy special to me. But even so I sometimes wish I could just sit down and relax and people would stop needing me. And I just have a husband and one kid. I read a thing recently that said being a parent is just getting up five seconds after you sat down. Ha so true!

One day after we had been married for a few months, I gathered all of the nine billion gazillion things that Aaron had strewn about the house into my laundry basket. Aaron is extremely messy and I am obsessively tidy. We’ve had to compromise with that one. The garage is a disaster exactly how he likes it and the house is tidy for me. It mostly works for us. I have my days where I tell Aaron I just hate the garage and then he says,”Babe did you already put away my guitar pick? I was literally still using that!” 

Anyway, I gathered it all up, and just chucked the whole thing into the garage. Crying my face off the whole time thinking if I have to clean up one more thing of his, I will DIE. Aaron was upstairs blissfully unaware of his wife throwing out all of his worldly goods. I felt bad a little while later and got all of his stuff and put it all away. (It was shortly after that that I asked him to please for heavens sake pick up his own dang stuff. Which he has happily done. The most easy going guy ever.)

“Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do, and learn to love what must be done.” I don’t remember where I read that but it’s been such an encouragement to me since I read it last year! The most helpful thing for me to do in moments of discontent and frustration with my job as a wife and mother is to stop and pray a prayer of thankfulness. Think hard about what your life would be like without this person and without serving him. How empty and grieved you would feel. Thank God for the blessed opportunity to pick up the socks from the floor even if you’re sick of it. I hate cooking. But I have to stop and thank God for providing so much for us. And thank Him for the family I’m cooking for. And thank Him for the skill (very meager skill) that I have to cook. It’s perspective. A thankful outlook on these somewhat unwelcome things will give you a content and peaceful heart. 

Give your spouse as much grace as you give yourself. You aren’t perfect so don’t hold him to a standard that you can’t even attain to yourself. Be forgiving and gracious when he screws up and makes mistakes. If he has a flaw that just seems to never go away, remember that you have those too and pray for him. Aaron is incredibly gracious with me. I’m terribly impatient and have a very angry temper. He just calmly carries on with life while I’m crying in rage because I can’t get the stupid mini blinds to lower down (you know how the string ALWAYS sticks on mini blinds? Ugh! Who invented those things?!). “Babe. Come on, step aside and let the man of the house fix the blinds. Look they went down on my first try. Why are you so mad?” If he can be gracious and forgiving with me when I’m impatiently snapping at everything, then how can I not be the same with him? And even if he wasn’t gracious with me, God still wants me to be gracious. You do the right thing no matter what your spouse is doing. Esteem your spouse over yourself. 

As far as I can see, you will always have to work on these things. Although it does get easier. It’s in our human, sinful nature to fall back into it. There is no magical land where you suddenly don’t have any problems. You’ll have weeks where they won’t bother you and you feel on top of it all. Then suddenly they crop up again and you have to work that flesh into submission all over again. That isn’t something to be discouraged by. Repent, and be thankful instead that God is the same as ever and will help you again just as He did the last time. Marriage is work and the work is good. Fun is all fine and well, but there is so much more reward and fulfillment in work and sacrifice. Just get up, put your hand in God’s, and try again.