My husband and I met in the sixth grade when I called him to see if he would "go out with" one of my good friends at the time. His reply was "No, but I'll go out with you." We went through the middle school dances, prom, and got married a few short years after we graduated. When we were teenagers, I swore up and down I wasn't going to be "one of those wives" who got obsessed with cleaning and kids and ignored my marriage. Now, fast forward to this point in life where we have been blessed with three active boys, who can lovingly drive us both nuts in a given day.
When children come along, life becomes bigger, better, and more rewarding. It also becomes more chaotic and stressful, leaving little time for the cuddling on a rainy Sunday afternoon while you lay on the couch together watching movies. The butterflies of that you get in your stomach because your other half wrote you a note during class and passed to you in the hallway at school was covered in hearts and flowers doesn't seem to exist much anymore. This is something that bothered me. Why does marriage have to become so ordinary?
There comes a point in marriage that you have to accept you're not going to receive love notes a few times a day, spend your after school hours together holding hands at the park all the time, and begin looking at how your relationship has grown in to something more than a middle school romance. I'm wearing my weekend sweats as I'm cleaning and my hair is thrown into a messy ponytail on top of my head. My husband walks up behind me with a smile on his face and says "You're beautiful". I send him an instant message telling him how much I love him. We hold hands as we're driving to the next activity for the kids. And yes, even as I'm begging him to help me more around the house, we both know we are in this relationship 100% together. For better or worse. For richer or poorer. Neither one of us is going anywhere. What better romance is there than that?
Our daily schedules may not always allow for love notes as we pass each other or childless nights at the park, but at the end of the day we both know where each other end up- cuddled together in bed, both knowing when we wake up in the morning there will be more hand holding, more kisses as we cook dinner, and more time together. That is what marriage is about.
