Letter to Ninja - Year 2
Ninja ~
You know how excited I was to get married. I had a romanticized vision of what my life would be like as a wife. Turning into a domestic goddess was something I'd always dreamed about. When we met, I was sure I had met the one. Things seemed perfect...
And then we hit some bumps. Some were little speed bumps ~ easy to get over ~ others seemed like mountains...more of a hike, but after crossing gave us such a sense of accomplishment.
We finally made a decision to grow up and change during our engagement. It definitely wasn't easy. You stopped drinking completely. I had to stop being so demanding and harsh. Both of us were guarded from past hurts but through our relationship we helped eachother soften and trust again. You cultivated my desire to grow into the woman I was meant to be. I finally saw the man I always knew you were. Again, things seemed perfect.
We got married. The first year really was bliss. Everyone always told me to just "make it through the first year" and I'd be all set. Typically, I think that's true for a lot of people because they have to adjust to the idea of marriage. I had been adjusting to the idea since I was 3. Where one of us was weak, the other excelled and vice versa. We were joyful in our disagreements because we were married and knew just how lucky we were to have found each other. People always asked us when we were going to get over that honeymoon phase. We vowed that we never would.
Enter Year 2. Like a ton of bricks dumped on our smug little heads, we found out that marriage wasn't meant to be perfect. Suddenly, we were squaring off over silly stuff like what to cook for dinner and why the other person has to be so damned moody in the morning. Why can't you rinse your dishes? And why on earth do you think it's okay to fold towels against the obvious CORRECT way that my dad taught me? Why are you treating me like a child, instead of your spouse? And countless other nitpicky issues that didn't mean a thing to who we were as individuals and who we were as a couple. It became tiring and it was the first time in our marriage when I thought, "this is hard work." It was the first time I felt like it was a very good thing that we were married because otherwise it might have been too easy to walk away.
But neither of us did. Maybe somewhat because you and I are two of the most stubborn people I've ever known, but mostly because we made a commitment in front of God, family, and friends that we were going to make it. More importantly, we made that promise to each other, to our best friend and soul mate. We were going to prove the statistics wrong.
A few months ago, we started the Love & Respect classes at church. Slowly but surely we were finding out the things we had been doing wrong. We started tweaking our attitudes and our words. We began expressing our thoughts and feelings differently. And we made it over another mountain. This time, our excitement over our breakthrough was undeniable. Each Sunday we have another piece to our puzzle. No longer does it seem necessary to be be perfect. Now it's more important to enjoy being perfect FOR each other.
I've never been more excited about our future than I am right now. Our third year is going to be amazing.
As long as you learn how to fold the damn towels.
xoxo,
S.
You know how excited I was to get married. I had a romanticized vision of what my life would be like as a wife. Turning into a domestic goddess was something I'd always dreamed about. When we met, I was sure I had met the one. Things seemed perfect...
And then we hit some bumps. Some were little speed bumps ~ easy to get over ~ others seemed like mountains...more of a hike, but after crossing gave us such a sense of accomplishment.
We finally made a decision to grow up and change during our engagement. It definitely wasn't easy. You stopped drinking completely. I had to stop being so demanding and harsh. Both of us were guarded from past hurts but through our relationship we helped eachother soften and trust again. You cultivated my desire to grow into the woman I was meant to be. I finally saw the man I always knew you were. Again, things seemed perfect.
We got married. The first year really was bliss. Everyone always told me to just "make it through the first year" and I'd be all set. Typically, I think that's true for a lot of people because they have to adjust to the idea of marriage. I had been adjusting to the idea since I was 3. Where one of us was weak, the other excelled and vice versa. We were joyful in our disagreements because we were married and knew just how lucky we were to have found each other. People always asked us when we were going to get over that honeymoon phase. We vowed that we never would.
Enter Year 2. Like a ton of bricks dumped on our smug little heads, we found out that marriage wasn't meant to be perfect. Suddenly, we were squaring off over silly stuff like what to cook for dinner and why the other person has to be so damned moody in the morning. Why can't you rinse your dishes? And why on earth do you think it's okay to fold towels against the obvious CORRECT way that my dad taught me? Why are you treating me like a child, instead of your spouse? And countless other nitpicky issues that didn't mean a thing to who we were as individuals and who we were as a couple. It became tiring and it was the first time in our marriage when I thought, "this is hard work." It was the first time I felt like it was a very good thing that we were married because otherwise it might have been too easy to walk away.
But neither of us did. Maybe somewhat because you and I are two of the most stubborn people I've ever known, but mostly because we made a commitment in front of God, family, and friends that we were going to make it. More importantly, we made that promise to each other, to our best friend and soul mate. We were going to prove the statistics wrong.
A few months ago, we started the Love & Respect classes at church. Slowly but surely we were finding out the things we had been doing wrong. We started tweaking our attitudes and our words. We began expressing our thoughts and feelings differently. And we made it over another mountain. This time, our excitement over our breakthrough was undeniable. Each Sunday we have another piece to our puzzle. No longer does it seem necessary to be be perfect. Now it's more important to enjoy being perfect FOR each other.
I've never been more excited about our future than I am right now. Our third year is going to be amazing.
As long as you learn how to fold the damn towels.
xoxo,
S.