5 years and more in love

I really love my husband. More now than I ever have. This statement in itself is amazing to me because if you would've asked me a year ago how I feel about my husband and my marriage I might have told you something like "Eh. They're alright." Which, is sad but, the good news is that it got better. A hundred times better. And as we are approaching our 5 year wedding anniversary I just wanted to share how happy I am and how it didn't use to be that way.

Once upon a time Josh and I locked eyes across bays at Kia of Greer and I knew I had to have him. He could do a tire rotation and an oil change faster than a crew in the pits at Nascar (or whatever they call it). He had a presence that you couldn't deny.  When he was in a room he owned that room. Being 6 foot, 7 inches kinda of has that effect on people. But before I could even have a conversation with him he quit and took a job towing cars.

One day people from work invited me out to a local bar and who should be there but Mr. Fast hands himself. Again, didn't talk much but I did bring a date so that kinda got in the way. Apparently I made an impression though because I was invited out the next weekend and this time I left the date at home. At the end of the night Josh came up to me and stole a long, deep kiss and then left without saying a word.

Well, that was all it took. I was captivated. That confidence and guts it took to go after what he wanted really attracted me to him. I dumped the other guy the next day and Josh and I had our first date within the week.

Within a month we were living together.  Within 2 months we'd bought a house together.  Within 3 months we were engaged.  Within 10 months we were married.  And within 15 months we were pregnant.  You could say we were on the fast track.

And we rode off into to sunset down the beach in the dune buggy we had built together and lived happily ever after.

Not!

Sadly shortly before we even said "I do," we started having some major issues. If we hadn't been so blindly in lust they would've been deal breakers. But we ignored our problems and pushed forward until the lust ran cold.

I had developed a serious emotional problem from all the baggage I'd drug into the relationship and I was attempting to drink it away everyday. My drinking sometimes lead to inappropriate behavior in which I wasn't always faithful or kind to myself. Josh was struggling with an intimacy problem and was acting out in yet another way. We had both lost our jobs. We were in debt up to our eye balls and now here I was pregnant and scared. We grew to resent each other and fought to win a lot. But we pretended that everything was okay and just kept saying things will get better when...

But it didn't. No one tells you how hard marriage is before you get hitched.  Everyone's just so happy for you and we wouldn't have listened anyway. But it is hard and you have to work at it everyday.

And we did really try at first.  We started going to church and accepted Christ into our hearts and lives. I went to AA. I went to school. Josh got a new job. I got a new job. But on the inside we were both still hurting and didn't really know what to do.

About 18 months ago I thought I had all I could take and I was ready to leave. Despite all my efforts to help Josh understand what I needed from him he still just looked at me with that cold, emotionless, careless look and I knew I would never get through to him.  We didn't talk. We didn't want to spend time together and we butted heads on anything we could find to disagree on. We couldn't say anything to each other without the other getting defensive and starting a fight. We were just barely keeping afloat. Going through with the motions and hiding behind taking care of our kids. There were holes in the walls and holes in our hearts. We had hurt each other badly. So we started marriage counseling.

After 10 months of working with Tim Wilkerson at the Brewer Center we were set free to try this thing on our own. I was terrified. We had learned a lot of valuable skills like how to talk to one another,  how to understand one another,  how to work as a team instead of against each other, how to take care of ourselves, how to not chastise ourselves for having needs, what each other's needs were, how to take care of each other, what our roles are and what qualities each person has to bring to the the table.  We learned that we both have feelings and to trust the feelings and when things don't feel right, talk about it. I learned I wasn't crazy and that Josh wasn't cold hearted. Josh learned he had extremely low testosterone and started treatment which fixed a lot of the things that made him act like a jerk. But, with all these things I was still scared that we would fall into our old habits of being selfish creatures without the accountability of having a couselor.

But, I am thrilled to say that after 6 months things have grown and gotten better. In relation to that our relationship with God has also grown and gotten deeper. Yes, there have been disagreements along the way but we work things out and make plans to change and follow through. Our relationship is better than it ever had been and the love we have developed by working through all our problems is much more rewarding than the puppy love or lust we had in the beginning.

Everyday we work hard at our common goal of loving each other unselfishly and taking care of each other's needs. I can honestly say I love him more now than the day we got married and it's the deep kind of love God intended for us all along.  I am so happy with our marriage and at this moment that if nothing else ever improved I would still be as happy as ever. But if we keep working at it our love and connection to each other will continue to grow and get better. I can't even imagine the level of joy that would come from our commitment to each other.

For the first time in a long time I am excited for what our marriage and God has in store for us.

So, happy anniversary to me and to the wonderful man God blessed me with.