Half a year of marriage

We had our six monthiversary on the first. I still can’t believe the way God blessed me and my family with Heather. It’s one of those things that makes it impossible for me to complain about anything. Having a woman who loves and supports you and who was hand picked by God for you is better than anything I can imagine.

They say after six months the honeymoon period ends and real life begins. But I think our kids effectively suppressed any sort of honeymoon period we may have had. I generally associate newly-wedded bliss with things like time to focus on each other and long romantic encounters. Well, we do our best, but these things come less often then they do to less distracted couples.

Any, at this point we are supposed to stop seeing the quirky things our spouse does as cute, and start finding them annoying. Those differences that we reveled in now getting under our skin. Well, that hasn’t happened to me yet. I love my bouncy, bubbly, emotional, frustrated, skipping, ADD wife as much as before. It doesn’t ever annoy me when she bounces on her workout ball for 10 minutes while I’m writing. It never bothers me when she needs to be played with like a puppy. I’m not tired of her needs in the least. I still adore those quirky aspects and I’m pretty sure I always will. Since I’ve been through this process before I think I can spot the potential for that sort of thing… But get back to me in 10 years.

Seriously though, I feel so blessed that I had the marriage I did before this one. It wasn’t just a bad marriage. It was spectacularly bad. Broken and dysfunctional in almost every way possible. And yet God was in there the whole time. His gentle, patient will getting accomplished. He gave me two sons through that marriage. Individuals whom He destined for something that only they could do. So I never want to act disdainful of my first marriage. But I can realistically assess the effects it had on me. And one of the coolest effects is my overwhelming appreciation for my new wife and how utterly different she is. Almost everyday something will spark a memory of how things were for me in my first marriage, and then I am overcome with how wonderfully opposite things are now. It’s not just that pains were taken away, but they were replaced with pleasure.

One example of this is the way Heather let’s me be who I am. And in that freedom, I’m finding all the right reasons to grow. Our pastor’s focus in our premarital counseling was loving another… Loving an OTHER. Loving the differences that we bring to each other. And we have many ‘other’s to love. Everything from appearance to attitudes. If we were paper dolls and we dressed each other up I know we’d look totally different. I’d put Heather in punky clothes and give her heavy, goth mascara. She’d put me in polo shirts and khakis and cut my hair short. But I know that she’s not punk, and she knows I’m not gay… or, whatever that look is.

I need a ton of sleep to feel good. She can’t sleep and never feels good. (Well, she’s sleeping now, and looking like the most adorable angel you could imagine.)

Then there is the way we spend our free time. I love to sit quietly and think, write, play games, etc. But she needs people to interact with. I keep trying to think of some kind of hobby that she could just sit down and work on for hours at a time. But the only time she can be still is when she is working on a project for somebody. You would not believe the amount of time and effort she pours into the people in her life. For instance: she had a college roommate several years ago from Korea who has moved back there. Well, Heather has this 50-page book that she has filled to overflowing with photos, poems, cartoons, etc. that she has made for this girl. She is always thinking about blessing other people. It’s the way God built her. And in that otherness I see a higher place that God is calling me to. So even though I wish she would just sit and entertain herself so I won’t feel guilty about a 3 hour Civilization IV session every now and then, I see the beautiful attributes that make her that way, and love her and God all the more because of them. I know she is challenged the same way through my attributes.

Something I don’t understand about our relationship so far is the total lack of fighting. We ruffle each other’s feathers and hurt each other’s feelings now and then, but we have never ‘fought’. Never yelled. Never blew up and slammed a door. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know if it’s just a phase that we will grow out of, or if our personalities just mesh a certain way. Whenever I’ve heard of a relationship without fights I always assume it’s because one of them was a total spineless push-over, or one was so domineering that the other knew arguing was futile. (I got to that point at the end of my last marriage.) But I don’t know any more. I’m certainly not claiming to have figured out some formula to a great marriage. We have just been incredibly blessed with each other and I hope that blessing will be pouring out to others more and more as our marriage matures.