Friday, September 20, 2013

Oh The Love...

Hello All! 
Happy Friday!

This week has felt super long.... just like last week did. I hope this isn't becoming a pattern. I'm 36 weeks and 3 days pregnant, and now that I'm down to the wire, I do not need my weeks/days/hours/minutes/or seconds dragging. At least until my little Addy finally decides to come out. Then it can slow back down. But until then, can we keep it moving, please!?!

Anyways, this week I've been....tired. That's pretty much it. I've been tired on top of tired. I've only been working half days, and every day I would go home and take a nap, only to go back to bed with my husband by 10 o'clock each night. Anything beyond cooking supper has been a trial for me. I digress. 

Yesterday my mom and I were talking on the way to my sister's house about love and affection in marriage. My parents have been married 30 years (31 years this November), and I when I'm visiting at their house I'm still having to remind them that "hello I'm in the room... you can stop groping each other now".  We all laugh and make funny jokes and innuendos (yes even my dad and mom). We are all pretty open. 

The truth is, though, I love knowing that after thirty years my parents still show that kind of affection, whether we are there or not. I remember growing up, riding in the car, and watching my dad reach over and take my mom's hand, or vice versa. I remember my daddy coming in from work, saying hello to her and giving her a kiss. I remember times where he'd tickle her, making her scream and laugh so hard until she was out of breath. 


As we were talking about love and affection, I made the statement that I thought it was good for me and my brother and sister to see that growing up, to see our parents still in love and affectionate towards each other. And I'm not talking about that overwhelming emotion you have when you are first together and every moment feels like you are walking on air. I'm talking about true love...

The love that has you snuggling closer to your husband, even when the two of you have felt distant.
The love that has your husband still kissing you years later the way he did when you were dating. 
The love the makes you want to give or do for that person just to make their day a little better.
The love that has you forgiving through the hurt.
The love that is still there after arguments and aggravation.
The love that is still there two, ten, or thirty years after marriage.
The love that is still there after your kids are grown and gone.

This kind of love comes with another component called commitment. 

I'm pretty sure since my mid-teens, my mom has spoken to me about the word commitment on several occasions, admitting that she didn't always "feel" the love for my daddy, but the commitment she made to him held them through those times. I've seen the days where I could have sworn they would bite each other's heads off fo real! And then the next day he was coming up behind her in the kitchen and wrapping his arms around her. 


I felt sad when my husband and I, about a year into our marriage, began losing that "overwhelming love" as life intruded. I see now it was a slow fade, and I hated when it happened. It made me feel like I'd lost him or that I was losing him. The truth is we were being brought out of something that would never last,  and into the beginning of something, that with work, would last a lifetime. 

Change is never easy, especially not in your relationship with your spouse. But the truth is you will go through changes in life that will put a strain on your relationship. You won't feel close, you won't feel that overwhelming emotion, you will go to bed without getting or giving a kiss goodnight, or even touching. However, I am finding that it is through these changes that love doesn't always come in overwhelming waves of passion. Sometimes love comes in subtle ripples. 

You know what is significant about those subtle ripples... is that it starts out from something small... and grows. 



Like when I'm sitting on the couch beside him massaging his legs because they are sore from being on them all day, and all he does is look at me and I see his love and thanks in his eyes...and all because I'm doing something so small as massaging his legs without him even having to ask. 

Like when I walk into the house after being out and he has washed the dishes and cleaned off the table so that I wouldn't have to when I got home. 

Like when he gets up and goes to work (a job he isn't liking and where he works with a bunch of but heads), when I know he'd rather just not. But he does it for us, and it reminds me of one of the reasons I fell in love with him. 

Like when we are laying in the bed, snuggled up beside each other, and begin walking down memory lane... Our first kiss (the best first kiss I'd ever had), the first time we went out (Which gave us our mutual love for Despicable Me), when he poked me with a fork at rally (his idea of flirting, and I loved it), the first time we traveled to his parents together, the day we got married, our honeymoon, our first fight and how we both apologized afterwards and held onto each other.

It is in these moments where God imperceptibly drops small pebbles of feeling and commitment into our hearts. The ripples from those pebbles form and grow, bringing back that more subtle, but nonetheless, overwhelming love, reminding you all over again why you committed yourself to that person to begin with.

I may not have been the most beautiful of choices or the smartest.
I may not have been the one with the best personality or the best singer.
But my husband fell in love and committed himself to me.
I don't want to ever take that for granted.

In 30 years...
When the years have aged us,
When we are watching our children have children,
When the world around us has completely changed and evolved,
When our memories may be blurred, but not forgotten,
that my husband and I still feel those ripples and fall in love with each other all over again.


4 comments:

  1. So thanks for making me cry..that makes twice today, apparently I'm on a streak! LOL This post was really amazing and as I'm coming on mine and Darrell's 13th anniversary (which is Monday btw) I think about this very topic. What holds you together? You are right, it will never be that first tingly/butterfly feeling you have at first. It's that commitment that, come what may we are going to get through it together. When you look back down the road later on in life, you realize that it was all worth it. Every bit of it.

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  2. I read an article yesterday about marriage and true love. I think people forget what REAL true love is. TRUE love isn't what you hear about in those love songs on the radio, true love isn't about those tingly butterfly feelings. True love isn't a Disney Movie love. TRUE real love is when you catch your husband doing dishes, or cooking you dinner. It's seeing how well he takes care of your children. True love is what happens in those mundane moments. It's so hard to remember those butterflies when you are stuck arguing about how to spend the last $100 in your bank account. and people often confuse love with that fire you feel when you first meet someone and fall in "infatuation" but the two are so different, people are left chasing those feelings because we think that's what real love is, we think real love is fire, sparks, desire.. and although all of those things are nice and you should have those feelings still, you should know that those feelings aren't what love is. I'm sorry for writing a book, haha.. but this post really touched me! Anyways.. I hope you have a great weekend!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I totally agree! People are so confused on what it really takes to make a marriage last, which is why so many of them fail. I'm glad I could write something that would touch someone else. It makes the vulnerability of writing something so personal very much worth it! I hope you have a blessed day! :)

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