My husband is my favorite person in the world. As I type this, he's laying next to me asleep and snoring, with crazy hair, blowing his stink breath on me. And he's still my favorite person. We're about a month out from our second wedding anniversary, which is also our seventh anniversary as a couple. Yes, that's right, we're one of those crazy high school sweetheart couples that made it through. That fact usually elicits a few "aww"s. Even just telling people we've been together since we were 16 usually gets response like, "You have the relationship I want!" or "You're so cute!" But to be honest, while finding my soul mate at 16 saved me heartache in a lot of areas, it's a lot less adorable-ness and a lot more work than most people understand. Discover yourself as a person, graduate high school, make college plans, decide on a future career... all while nurturing the most important relationship in your life (other than God)? Sure, no problem. But when you make a metal alloy, the metals lose their individual characteristics, and the atoms of different sizes and shapes combine, creating something entirely new... and stronger. I want to share with you a few things I've learned about our relationship that are a little less "aww," that you need to know and know how to deal with, if you want a successful relationship.
1. Your relationship will struggle if God isn't at the center, no matter how hard to work.
I am a hard worker. And I'm stubborn as heck. But all of my hard work could never match the blessing of what God has for Nate and I as a couple. I think Nate and I had God in our relationship for most of our seven years, but we always tried to make him feel like the awkward third wheel. "Oh, hey God... we were actually just going to a movie... Come along? Well, okay." But I think that about six months ago, we truly took the step to put Him first, each other second, and let everything else fall into place. That decision has been a blessing above and beyond what I could even imagine.
2. There will be moments when nothing seems sacred anymore.
I remember the first time Nate and I farted in front of each other. Is that weird? Because we both do, and for some reason, we love that story. It was about 6 months after we started dating, and we were actually celebrating Christmas at my parents' house. My mom had made double chocolate cheesecake, which apparently is both a delicious dessert and a colon cleanser. We started talking about how our stomachs hurt, and I did it... I farted. And he chuckled like it was the most adorable thing he had ever seen/heard. Fast forward six and a half years and my farts are usually met with total disgust or even a non-response. Seven years has taken the mystery out of just about everything, but that's okay. Mystery is for puppy love. When I was first pregnant, I think I had a trimester's worth of morning sickness in about 24 hours a few days prior to finding out I was pregnant. I woke up at about 2am on a Sunday, horrified, and RAN to the bathroom to sit on the toilet. In the process of expelling everything except my soul out of me, I ALSO started vomiting. I was already on the toilet, so I just threw up all over our small bathroom's floor. These delightful sounds beckoned my husband and he ran towards the bathroom. "Oh God..." he said, looking at me with huge eyes, as everything that I had ever consumed shot out of both ends Exorcist style. I began to sob, and he told me to get in the shower, and he would clean it up. Now, that alone should win him husband of the century, but as I cried in the shower and he cleaned up my vomit... I said something that wins him husband of the millennium.
"Nate," I whimpered softly.
"Ya honey?" He said, being the champ he is, cleaning up my puke.
"I think... I think I s*** the bed."
"You think what?" he said slowly, sure he had misheard.
"I S*** THE BED!!" I sobbed loudly. "I woke up and it was too late!"
Ya, please say "Aww" to that people. Because someone that will clean up multiple bodily excretions of yours in one night is more adorable than a Nicholas Sparks book, hands down.
3. You can tell a lot from the fights you have.
When Nate and I first got married, we had a HUGE fight. Probably one of our biggest. And I left. I just left. And it was late, probably midnight or so. I didn't have anywhere to go, but I had to just get out of there. I was SO mad. He kept calling my cell phone, and on about the fifth call, I had burned through a lot of gas, so I picked up.
"WHAT" I said.
"I know you're mad," he said.
"Oh, you think?" I yelled sarcastically.
Nate responded softly. "If you don't want to see me, then come home, and I'll leave for the night. It's late and I don't want anything to happen to you."
I wanted to yell at him some more, but how can you even respond to that with anything but love?
4. You'll want to give up.
Nate and I don't use the word divorce. We've never fought to a level where we'd even have used it, but we don't even say it jokingly. But about three years into our relationship, we wanted to give up. It was at the point where you've been together long enough that everything seems boring, but not long enough that you've truly invested in each other. We were also making huge life choices, and in the process, trying to figure out if we were making decisions for "me" or "we." We spent the night on the phone, talking about whether we really wanted to be together, and I think at one point, I hung up on him. At the time, he was on his cell phone at Kroger. About 30 seconds after I hung up on him, leaving our relationship in an uncertain place, he ran into his ex-girlfriend. They chatted for a bit, and she told him that they should hang out that night. "Ya, sounds good," he said.
To this day, I am so thankful that Nate paused a couple seconds, turned around and said, "Actually, my girlfriend and I are fighting right now... Tonight's probably not the best time for us to hang out."
5. Money can ruin everything.
I've only given Nate one ultimatum in our entire marriage (other than the 40 or so I jokingly gave about him proposing). But I've only given one seriously, because I think ultimatums are tacky and if something is that wrong, than you should probably just leave.
Nate really didn't have a lot of good examples in how to handle money, and his spending habits showed that. He was in an apartment he couldn't afford, paying everything on an always-nearly-maxed credit card, and it just wasn't good. I knew that, but I was trying to let him deal with the situation himself. That is, until I found out about the second credit card he had opened when he maxed the first one's limit.
When he realized I knew, he started crying before I even said anything (ya, I guess I'm that big of a b-word). But God gave me calmness and I actually hugged him, even though I wanted to punch him in the face. "You know we can't get married if you don't get this debt paid down," I said. "We need a good start to our marriage." And I hugged him tighter. A year later, we owned a home together, and got married with no consumer debt.
So those are five kind of crappy things about relationships, but in the end, if you're with the person that God has for you to be with and you're prepared for those circumstances, your life and relationship will be a BLESSING. It's not all roses, but when you have someone to lay next to you snoring and blowing their stink breath on you that you can truly thank God for, you don't mind fighting for that relationship.
Happy Two-Seven Year Anniversary, Nate! <3
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