The Truth About My Marriage: Marriage Is NOT Work

We have been married 8.5 years and together for 10. When people find out how long we've been together, a lot of times I hear "Wow! That's a long time, especially with the same person...and happily! Congratulations!" I thank them, but I am surprised and saddened that 8 years of marriage these days is an accomplishment. My parents have been married almost 50 years. Eight doesn't seem that long sometimes. Why is it such a struggle and surprise to actually hear people are happy? Whenever I get to talking with other gal pals, they always say that "Marriage is just such hard work, you know?" and expect me to nod in agreement. Not once have I ever understood what this means.

How can you even say marriage is work? Why the hell do you have to work at loving someone? Being married is the easiest thing I've ever done. I'm not saying there aren't difficult or stressful times (trust me being a Marine wife, its full of stress as far as not knowing when and where you'll get orders and spending over a half a year away from your husband at a time and not really having a lot of control over your life, but that's part of the adventure), but never once have I thought of it as work.

To most people, work is something you dread doing. You dread Mondays and the weekends are never long enough. Sometimes you put in extra hours and work your ass off for a raise or promotion that may never come, with little or no appreciation. Let me make one thing clear, marriage is not a Monday through Friday 9-5 gig. If that's what you're looking for, don't get married. If you dread the person you're waking up to every morning and look forward to any time away from them, you have serious issues. If this is how you feel about your job, you can quit and go find a new one. You can't do that in a marriage. Well, I suppose you can, but you're going to lead an extremely unhappy life.

As far as putting in those extra hours and working your ass off for no appreciation, you shouldn't have to work your ass off to make your spouse to appreciate you. They should do that no matter what. If you feel like you are getting no respect, love, or appreciation, there are deeper problems. You shouldn't wake up next to your spouse after 1 year, 10 years, 20+ years and think "Well, here we go again, another day...with HER/HIM."

This is not something I ever planned on writing. And yes, I did wake up one day and said to myself "I'm going to write a book/blog about this" because I am so sick of seeing marriages around me constantly have issues. I am tired of seeing marriages fail, and tired of seeing people stay together and be completely unhappy and miserable.

Start saying thank you if your spouse does something for you, no matter how small it is.
Tell your spouse you appreciate them. Literally. Say it. Tell them why. It has a different meaning than I love you, but means just as much.

If you have to constantly think about what the hell else you can do to make your spouse happy, or feel like you are loved by them, then that's work. No one should ever feel unloved or unappreciated, or used or taken advantage of.

The only thing you will get out of your marriage is what you put into it. So what are you putting into yours? Think about it. That's your answer. Then maybe you'll understand why your marriage is work.

Next post: Communication.

The Truth About My Marriage: Be Kind to One Another, Appreciate Each Other

Well I had to get your attention SOMEHOW.

The truth about my marriage is...it's absolutely wonderful. I have the best husband in the whole entire world. I told him I was sick of things I was hearing about marriages nowadays between friends and family so I was going to write about it. At first we kinda both thought "We've only been together ten years and married for 8, not 40 or 50, so why would we think we could write about it? Eh, fuck it! Let's do it!" He's writing a little with me, but he is very busy with work and such a perfectionist, I'm not sure when his part will be ready, but I promise it will be amazing because he is one hell of a writer. I have several different topics I've written about but sharing them in sections. At first I was going to start out with our Love Story, how we met, how we proposed, and go chronologically, but I think I will save that for later.

With what has happened in Paris, I feel like this is a better way to start out. I feel like we all need to step back and take a damn good look at the people around us, parents, family, friends, and spouses more so because that's what all this is about.

When I hear Parisians being interviewed and asked "What do you want to say to the world about Paris?" I've heard every one of them say "Paris is love." Now you may think that's some sort of French hippie thing but its not. Take a lesson from the French. And take a lesson from Ellen Degeneres when she says "Be kind to one another" at the end of her show every day. Sadly, that's a really hard fucking concept for a lot of people.

Aaron and I say I love you probably every 5 seconds. Some people think its too mushy, some people think "Why do you feel the need to say it so often? Do you really have to remind each other?" Or another one is "If you say it all the time, it loses it's meaning. You shouldn't say it all the time so that way when you do it means something." That is probably one of the biggest loads of bull shit I've ever heard.

Sometimes we may sounds like a broken record we say it so often, more so when he is deployed, but sometimes that's all you can ever really say. Sometimes he will come up to me and wrap his arms around me, kiss me on the nose or forehead and tell me he loves me and appreciates me, just because. It never gets old, not once in ten years, and I know he means it every single time. I do the same. Sometimes we just squeeze each other tight.  When you're apart so much, the time you're together is so important and can't be spent fighting or being angry or hateful. That's not to say we don't annoy each other sometimes, we're only human.

But the next time you get pissed off at your husband for leaving his sandy boots on the floor, or their socks and underwear in the living room (ahem), or the drawers and cabinets open in the kitchen (cough, cough), just look at their dirty boots. Or is the house clean? Have they spent all day making sure you are coming home to a clean house and dinner being cooked? Just because you have different jobs doesn't mean one is better than the other, and both should be appreciated. I know when Aaron is gone, I will leave his shoes where he left them the day before or a shirt on the bedpost because even though it's nice not having socks lying around, I miss his little messes because it means he is home with me. If I leave things the way they are I feel a little bit more normal, a little bit more like he is home.

One thing Aaron has done every single day is wake me up and kiss me and tells me he loves before he goes to work. He has never not done it. He always will. When he comes home from work we hug and kiss and say we missed each other and we talk about our day. Sometimes we snuggle on the couch and sometimes we lay in bed. If he doesn't beat me to it, he'll put his legs in my lap and I'll unlace his boots and take them off with his socks and massage his ankles. If you're a military spouse you know what I mean when they have those marks around their ankles. It's just what we do. It's our little thing, and sometimes it's those little things, those little acts of kindness that bring you closer every time you do them.

You may think, "I don't need to say I love you to my spouse, they already know that I love them, so its stupid to say it all the time." Is it really? No. There's nothing wrong with saying it, and there's nothing wrong with saying it often. If your spouse does something for you, helps you clean, helps you build something, open a jar of pickles, say THANK YOU for God's sake. No matter how big or how small the task, if your spouse does something for you, say thank you. If they are constantly doing things for you and never get a thank you, and you shrug it off and are constantly ordering them around, they're not going to do it for you anymore. No one wants to be in a marriage that feels like a dictatorship or feel like they're being bullied. You shouldn't feel lessened by your spouse. How hard you work should not ever be a contest.

Sure we get mushy and lovey on Facebook sometimes. I can't help it. We try not to be 'that couple'. But what's worse is posting your problems on social media. Facebook is not a dirty laundry basket. It's not a place to bash your spouse. Its not a place to talk about your sexcapades. Keep that shit off your profile. Don't ever talk about your spouse EVER to anyone. That just demeans them. If you are having issues, talk to your spouse. This loops back to Communication for another time....moving on.

If you're constantly bringing someone down making them feel like it's their fault, and they want to talk to you about it, about what they can do better and you refuse...how are they supposed to know what you want? Now this all loops back to Communication and Marriage Isn't Work, which I've also written about and I'm trying hard to stay on topic with this because they all link together, but try and stay with me on this.

I'm so sick of hearing from people "My husband said this to me and he makes me feel like this," or "my wife is such a bitch and is so mean because...." It goes both ways. You can't force someone to love you and sure as hell can't expect them to if you treat them worse than shit on the bottom of your shoes.

Even if you have a solid marriage, if you don't say thank you for even little trivial thing, start. After awhile you might find that a thank you is often followed by "I love you" and that's always good to hear. When you marry someone, you marry them to spend the rest of your life with that person. You're saying "I want to witness your life. Your life will not go unnoticed because I will be here to witness it." Ok, I stole that from Susan Sarandon in Shall We Dance? but it's so true. We are witnesses to each other's lives.

Now if you're a witness to someone's life because you love them show much, you love them so much you married them, wouldn't you always want them to know that they are loved and appreciated? Even if they don't feel it by anyone else but you? It must be reciprocated of course in order for marriage to work. You both have to want to be witnesses to each other's lives. If you don't care enough about the person to care about their feelings or what is happening in their life or in your marriage, that person deserves to have someone else be a witness to their life. They deserve to have someone kind, loving and appreciative.

More to come on other topics, but I felt the need to share this first. I could go on for days but it would be repetitive. I am tired of hearing how unkind people are to each other in the world, I'm tired of hearing it in marriages. I find it sad it's so hard for people to just be kind to their spouses. If you truly love them, it should be easy as pie, you shouldn't even have to think about it.

I am in a marriage where I don't get to see my husband for months at a time. We have been together 10 years and a combined total from the time we met until now between deployments, training, and just in between time, we have spent 5 of them apart. The longer we are together, the more time we are apart and that ratio grows. I realize this is a part of military life. However there are those of you who are never apart, and for those of you out there like that, if you're not being kind and loving to each other, what the hell are you doing? You are blessed to truly witness every day of your life you share together. Why are you wasting it away with being horrible to each other? Why??

I'll post Aaron's thoughts on this topic soon, as he's doing some final editing on his bit and it's good. :)  So I'll leave you with this for now. I have 3 more topics that will be coming soon: Communication, Marriage Is Not Work, and Never Stop Dating.

Until Next Time: