Marriage 2.0

We are less than a month away from celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary.  I know that's a big deal to most people, but for us it's HUGE!

As is always the case, I'm going to be brutally honest.  Two weeks ago, I packed a bag and left my husband a detailed letter about how I needed a few days away from him to decide if I still wanted to be married.

There were a couple issues plaguing me.  He had been gone the week prior and I had gone days with only 1-2 hours of sleep.  I needed rest and sleep desperately.  My days had become filled with little more than laundry, cleaning, cooking, taking care of dogs and repeating.  My exhaustion only exacerbated the feelings of being a single wife.  My husband had gotten so focused and wrapped up in his job, that he had little interest in or focus on anything else.  I have certainly done that and maybe you have too.  It is easy to let the most stressful issue in our lives consume us and for the ones we love the most to suffer. 

Regardless, I'd had enough and needed a respite from it all.  I needed things to change or I needed the strength to accept it.  Needless-to-say, I came back home the same night and we left the next day for a weekend away.  No cleaning, no cooking, no working, no email, no time spent apart.  It was just what we needed.  I know, packing and leaving was extreme but it certainly led to our quick realignment.

As terrible as that all sounds, it is NOTHING in comparison to the months leading up to our 1st wedding anniversary.

OK, I'm not going to sugar coat this at all.  Our first entire year was pretty miserable.  He had lived on his own for well over five years.  He had his routine, his stuff, his ways and I was an intruder!  I had no stability prior to moving and was a bit more free and loose with time and routine than he was.  We clashed in big ways. 

My grandma had died three days before our wedding.  I didn't have time to grieve and I certainly didn't know how.  On top of that, I had moved two hours away from everyone I knew.  My husband, who I didn't like much that first year, was literally the only person I knew.  I left a town of 2,000 people with only 1 gas station and a Pizza Hut and moved to a huge suburb of KC.  My entire life had been turned upside down.

Because my husband was so regimented in his routine, we made the trip back to his parents EVERY weekend.  No kidding!  We spent not one weekend at home that entire first year.  We also made six trips back that first year for more funerals.  Our families both suffered lots of loss that first 12-15 months of our marriage.

Heading into our first anniversary, I was fairly certain that I didn't like this guy enough to stick around.  I had gotten a marketing job that I loved though.  So, I decided to at least stick it out through our first anniversary.

If you know my husband, you know he is a kind, quiet guy who would do anything for anybody.  He wasn't always that way.  He went through some major thyroid issues prior to our wedding that didn't moderate until several years into marriage.  That made him moody and easily annoyed.  He was kind of arrogant and had the "I've got the world by the tail" mentality.  I cringe even typing that because he is nowhere close to that today.

One month before our anniversary, his company downsized and he was let go.  My $8/hour marketing job had become our only income.  That job loss was the turning point for my husband.  It had brought him to his knees.  Crushed him in a way that forever changed him. 

He was only out of work for about 45 days, but it took us months and maybe even years to overcome.  The days, weeks and months following our first anniversary were a blur, but we obviously survived it.

This year certainly has nothing on that first year or many of the past 14.  But here we are, still together and heading into our 15th anniversary. 

With all that we've been through (and there's a whole bunch of ick that I haven't mentioned that's even worse), we are still together.  We've beat the odds.  With my background and all that we have endured, there was little hope we'd still be together today.  We are about to prove the statistics wrong. 

That feels good!  It would be great if the next 15 were perfect, but I'll just be happy if I can look back and say "These past 15 were easier than the first 15."