Marriage Is Worth Fighting For!

Marriage isn’t easy. Honestly, it’s pretty dang hard at times. Then there are times when it’s the most amazing thing in the world. Don’t get me wrong; the best decision I ever made was to marry my husband. He is the most amazing man and loves our kids and me more than anything. He strives every day to do the best he can for us and it never goes unnoticed by me. That still doesn’t change the fact that it’s hard!

I love my husband more than I can express in words. I know, that sounds super sappy and you are probably gagging but it’s true. I went through a lot of ups and downs before him. My dating life was pretty much a horror movie with the occasional romantic comedy scene. Definitely not an award-winning situation, that is, until he came into my life. The entire time we dated, not once did we argue. I know, that seems like a lie but it’s the honest truth! We clicked so well together that there really was nothing to argue about. In fact, we didn’t really have a disagreement until we had kids. Some how, those kids find a way to pit mommy and daddy against one another. Still, we found a way to have little disagreements without them turning into anything big.

That is until last week. Last week we had our first big argument of our entire marriage. That’s right folks, we are seven years into our marriage and we JUST had our first big argument. Now when I say big, it was more of the silent treatment on both sides. We aren’t the yelling type. There were some not so nice text messages on both side and many hours of no text or talking. Which I think was simply because we couldn’t work things out right away like we are used to. He was really busy at work, I was at the laundry mat and aggravated about that…so it was the recipe for disaster. What the argument was over is really irrelevant because honestly it was stupid. It was just both of us aggravated and busy which made everything seem bigger than it was. Needless to say, we both had a pretty crappy day after that.

Now, something we both discussed before we got married was what we wanted in our marriage. We both agreed that we didn’t want our marriage to be centered on yelling and arguing when we were upset or mad. We wanted to make sure that we took the time to calm down and then come together and talk about the issue at hand. We both knew, from either past relationships or from childhood, that if you don’t take the time to cool down then things get said that shouldn’t ever be said. Plus, I never want our kids to experience the yelling and fighting that I saw a child. So while him being at work and me trying to get things done made the argument bigger than it was, it also gave us the time to cool down.

So after work, my husband walks in with flowers (because he’s just that sweet and knew that I was upset over the day and argument) and he asked me if I would like to talk about things. So we set the kids up with a TV show they like and went into our kitchen. There were tears (on my part of course) but most importantly, we CALMLY discussed the argument, why it blew up and then the original issue that started it all. Within 20 minutes we had talked our way through it all and the understanding of what needed to happen in the future if faced with a similar situation.

Now that might seem easy enough but when you are aggravated, upset and overwhelmed…that’s a lot! It takes thought and purpose to control your reaction to yell or blow things up in your own mind. And let’s be honest, I am not perfect! I could have kept that whole argument from happening if I would have controlled my reaction initially but I didn’t. I had to take the time to chill out and so did my husband. Life is stressful and arguments are going to happen. The question is, how are you going to deal with those arguments?

A simple conversation before we got married has become the foundation of our marriage. We know that our marriage is worth fighting for but that doesn’t mean yelling. It means taking a step back, calming yourself down and then coming together and TALKING AND LISTENING! When my husband spoke, I listened. When I spoke, he listened. He had to know my feelings and what hurt or upset me. I had to listen to why responded the way he did. The communication helped us learn more about each other and made our marriage stronger. You will always be learning things about your spouse and communication is the best possible way to do that. Y’all, they are serious when they say, “Communication is key!”

At the end of the day, everyone wants a strong marriage. You have to be willing to put the work in to get that though. There will be great days and there will be some pretty crappy days. It’s what you do inside those days that matter. I highly recommend that you sit down with your significant other (you don’t have to be married) and talk about a plan of action for when the day arrives that you have an argument. I’m telling you, it has been extremely helpful for even our little disagreements.