Two months ago when I wrote about my husband (calling him "Mr. Books and Brownies," which I am not sure he appreciated), Emily left a comment saying, "Thanks for posting this. In a day when marriages are crumbling right and left it's so encouraging! Maybe your next post should share what you've learned in your years together about staying happily married. :-)" I wasn't really sure what I could say. I hardly ever give people advice. I suppose it's my little effort at counterbalancing the MANY people who feel they need to give everyone the benefit of their sage advice. I know I'd be lost in my parenting without that one lady in the grocery store to tell me what to do!
Next July is the tipping point, after which I will have known Roger longer than I didn't know him. I have sometimes wondered if we are just lucky. Did we just happen to meet the right person and live happily ever after? But then I think back on the three years we were together before we got engaged, and I know that we really worked on our relationship. We did a lot to make sure that we were right for each other. There were times when it was hard and we could have said, "No way." But we didn't. Maybe sometimes people give up too soon. We weren't married yet and so we both knew that we could leave the relationship and yet we stayed and worked our issues out, and when we had them all worked out, we got engaged. And even then, we waited another year. So during our entire marriage, we have always known that we both chose to be here with each other, and we made that choice clearly, knowing pretty much everything there is to know about each other.
But on the flip side, I think of our love as a grand romance. It's elevated above petty concerns like bills, jobs, problems, and stress. Those things exist, but I don't let them touch our romance. It's really hard to describe. Maybe an example would help.
About a year after we got married, Roger was without a job. One of my friends felt that Roger was not doing enough to find a new job and kept telling me that I should push him to do this or do that. Finally I told her that I was not going to ruin my marriage - a permanent state - over a temporary jobless condition. It's like in the lyrics to Lonely No More - "What if it was paradise? What if we were symphonies?" What if, indeed?
