Marriage is tough...

Marriage is tough. It's a statement that seems to be spoon-fed down the throats of the single folks, like if you're married you're a part of some secret club that only married people know about. I used to hate hearing people say that to me before I was married. And yet, I find myself saying it all the time to the single people around me.

When I was single I thought people were telling me to sort of warn me or prepare me for some impending doom on the day I got married. Now that I'm married, I know that people say it to encourage themselves to keep going, keep fighting, keep loving, and keep moving forward. In other words "marriage is tough" really means "just keep on truckin'".

I love Chief. I really do. I love him more than I ever believed myself genuinely capable of loving. But the past week, I didn't feel as much love as I felt resentment, jealousy, and hurt feelings. Isn't it crazy how quickly the joy of love can be twisted and turned to something awful?

You see, with Lolli's hospital scenario, the kids' sicknesses, my sickness, Chief's sickness, his schooling, his Army work, and our overall busy-ness, I have barely spent any time with Chief. He comes home from work, eats dinner with us for 20 minutes and starts school, or counselling statements, or creates classes for work, or does ten thousand things for the Army. Then when he finishes that, he plops himself down on the couch and plays games on his phone, fiddles around on the internet, or falls asleep.

Now, I realize that his busy-ness is not that big of a deal. I know he could be involved in much worse things than working hard for his family. But I have to be honest, I don't do well when I don't connect with him. I become depressed, insecure, grumpy, my thinking gets foggy, and I just lose my overall cheeryness. It's really quite pathetic that the absence of a connection with Chief does all of that to me, but I have to say it's the negative side of being genuinely in love with another human being.

Today, Chief and I had an incredibly busy day of errands to do. In a moment when he was checking the air in my tires, my heart swelled with grief and sadness and the negative feelings disappeared. He works SO hard for me and I have only been thinking about myself, and not about him are the thoughts that flew through my brain. Wow. Sucker punch to my wife gut.

So how do I respond? I need to get over myself. I need to stop being so completely self involved. I need to put myself in his shoes, and imagine how completely overwhelmed, over worked, and drained he must feel. I need to think about his best interests, and not my own. Isn't that what marriage is supposed to be anyway? I look out for him, and he looks out for me.

I hate when my heart displays its ugliness.