High Maintenance

I can't really say that I'm qualified to give any kind of marriage advice, and I'm not going to try. My husband and I have been married for just over four years, so we're definitely in the youth of what I hope to be a long, long lifetime of marriage. And while I'm not qualified to give marriage advice, I can say that I'm incredibly qualified when it comes to picking out a good husband. 

A long, long time ago, I met my husband. We were young. In fact, he was so young that he had to actually sneak into the bar where we met. Granted, he's British, so he had been legally entering bars in his homeland before we met, but still--we were young. We met, we hit it off, and then we went back to our normal lives in our respective countries. I dated a bunch of guys and never really felt like any of them were right--there was always just something about each of them that made it clear to me that they weren't right for me. These were small things--a comment here or there, an awkwardness, a hint of arrogance, an ill-timed poem on my birthday that made me squirm. You know, the usual.

So, when my now-husband came back to visit and we had dinner and walked around the art garden, and I felt like he had a magnet that drew me in despite the concrete obstacles between us, it took me by surprise. And it kind of bummed me out. I knew that, if we tried to have a relationship, things would always be difficult. They would be difficult for us, for our families, for our friends. But I felt, even way back then, that the troubles would be worth it.

Now, years and years later, we have moved across the world for each other, have spent time, money, and energy making things work despite the odds, and our relationship feels decidedly normal. It no longer consists of tearful good-byes at the airports, all the free time in the world to watch movies or go to dinner or sleep, or the desperation to be together that most people feel at the beginning of a relationship. All that stuff has faded into diaper changes, nighttime wake-ups from our child, exhaustion at the end of the day, talks about our plan for the next baby, piles of laundry, and dinners at 5:30 instead of 8PM. 

But because he is the right one, those things are OK. We can laugh or complain about those things, we can sit and stare at the end of the day and wonder how people get through these times, we can look at our beautiful child in amazement, frustration, or through sleep-deprived eyes, we can watch our next baby move and stretch in my swollen tummy at night, and we can look at each other and say that there is no one we'd rather be with, no one we would rather go through this with, and no one who could be a better partner for us or parent to our children. 

We haven't always been perfect partners to each other. There have been moments of normal frustration, misunderstandings, disagreements. But what we always had, and what we are developing more each day, is the capacity to love and understand each other, and the want to do so. And that, I think, is more important than anything.