This guy just turned 40 and we also recently celebrated 17 years of marriage. That's 17 years of blessings, trials, forgiveness, and lots of lessons. This guy is someone I get to call my best friend as well as husband. He's always been the one who could make me laugh when I didn't feel like laughing at all ... but these days with adulthood bringing on lots of stresses and worries it's hard to find that time to laugh too often anymore. Both of us struggle to find patience and calmness. It's something we both need to work on so we can better handle this stage of life we are in. You know, the stage where he spends 8 hours at work and then comes home and has to eat a quick meal I've had to put together early so that he can rush out the door to take our son to either baseball or scouts, or I have to rush to take our daughter to dance. Then we all gather again in the evening but we are too busy spending time with the kids and getting them to follow their nighttime routine. By the end of the night we sit on the couch together and enjoy some peace and quiet while watching television before bed. At that point I'm too tired for anything ... and I mean ... anything.
Then we wake up and do it all over again. And again. And again.
We focus so much on the kids and on the house and along the way we are drifting apart. I'm drifting. It's just been hard. I know this is typical for a lot of married couples. I've always felt that the couple need to always stay close and connected, especially during the years of raising children. Children can be so consuming of us in many ways and it's easy to neglect the spouse. When the children are grown and it's just the two of us again, if we fail to stay connected, the spark in our marriage will go out. That's a very dangerous thing. I can feel the spark flickering and it's challenging. There are moments when I want to hug him and love on him and there are moments when I just want to be left alone.
In my personal life I managed to find my relationship with God getting stronger and I've been focusing on that lately more than anything. I feel it's so important. I go to him in prayer often and ask for all sorts of help in every aspect of my life. I've really been praying for my marriage and for me to be able to see my husband through His [God's] eyes. During my prayers so much has been revealed to me. Things like what I could do to strengthen our marriage during this stage of our lives and my eyes have been opening to understand and focus on the demands my husband has in his life.
He works a full-time job and there were times when he worked a second part-time job on top of it. He takes charge of all the bill paying, which means he also handles the stress of finances. That's a big job. He also comes home tired and to a house that isn't always the cleanest and the kids are sometimes fighting. He also suffers with arthritis and is always in pain. He looks into my tired eyes and begs for something I can do to relieve his pain and often he gets a no and that can be frustrating to him. I haven't really taken too much time to look deeply into his eyes and focus on his needs. He begs for intimacy because it's a way we can get close and reconnect, but without the emotional connection it's so hard for me to get into the physical connection. It's something I need to work on because with all he does he deserves something he yearns for. I understand it now and I'm working on it.
We'll get there. We will get back on track. I know it's going to have to start with me and with the help of God. He deserves so much more than what he's been given. We may have gotten off track but it's going to be okay. It's the trials of marriage. We all go through it.
He's a wonderful man, husband and father. I'm going to make sure he has a pretty awesome Father's Day.
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