(Love) and Marriage

I had a different post in mind tonight. I was going to talk about how I felt lost when I woke up this morning, because I didn't know what to do today and felt I needed direction. (I found it, by the way.) I was going to go off into an animated discussion of how I cleaned my buck nasty fridge today. (Be glad I didn't.) I was going to mention how I need to work on my patience, because living with a two-year-old who isn't a fan of listening is working my poor temper into a frenzy. (We'll get back to that sometime soon.)

But then I read a fellow blogger's post this afternoon and have been thinking about it since.

Her post about the state of her marriage has really gotten me thinking about mine and marriages in general. (No, family, we're fine. No, J, I'm not going to divulge any personal secrets. Y'all can breathe easy.) I've been thinking about how easy it is to let something good fall away. About how easy it is to let life--finances, rearing of kids, personal interests, friends--get in the way of a good thing that two people have going, and how pretty soon two people are left wondering what the &*@% happened to their relationship.

I know that the daily grind can be very boring, not to mention exhausting, and that I'm guilty of letting these two things keep me from building up my relationship with J. It doesn't make me happy in the least. I can remember how in the early years of the relationship it didn't matter how tired we were, we'd take the time to spend time with each other, even if it was after a long Mexican food-induced coma nap and it was now 1 in the morning. We got up from our nap, pulled up the Law and Order: SVU we had TiVoed, and vegged out on the couch till 3 in the morning, just to spend the time with each other. But after seven-and-a-half years, one kid, and demanding jobs it can be difficult to maintain that kind of "romance". Either or both of us are left after hectic days wanting a little personal time to decompress, whether it be blogging and crafting (me) or interneting and iPhone programming (him), or just a night out, letting Coors Light (him) or a movie (me) shake the crazy off for a little while. In my effort to take care of myself I realize that I run the risk of letting us flounder, and that is something that scares me and that I do NOT want to happen.

I will say right now that J and I don't have the perfect marriage. Just like ANY married couple we fight, we get annoyed with each other, we get pissed with each other, we nag each other over little things that bug the other (me--I nag him about messes he makes; him--he nags me for ALWAYS trying to talk to him when he's on the phone with someone). But I feel we do have a darn good one. I know that part of marriage is the ups and downs. They don't have the whole "for better or for worse" clause in wedding vows for nothing. But after reading the aforementioned blog post today, I am more convinced than ever that I want to make it a high priority to always fight with all my being to make sure that we make it to "till death do us part."

It doesn't take a monumental event like an affair to send a couple down the slippery slope to separation, estrangement, and divorce. It can be a series of someone finding their needs more important than the other, someone holding their feelings inside, or snide remarks that can escalate into something much larger than "so and so never takes out the garbage". Or it can be that both parties get so worn down dealing with life's little details that marriage gets put on the backburner.

I know that we're in a good place right now, but I know that we're human and that without nurturing our marriage it's not insane to think that it could be us. And that is what has had me thinking today. Her post has been a reminder to NEVER take J and our relationship for granted and to work to never be complacent being in just a "good place".