The good, the bad and the ugly

I was talking to a friend on Facebook a while back. She had just added me and since our last encounter we had bothgotten married. I had a chat bubble come up and she asked me how life was and how marriage was going. I replied:

It's hard.

It wasn't that I was upset with my marriage or my husband or my life. I was just acknowledging the truth. Marriage is hard for me. She replied in the most interesting way and said thank you. Then she went on to express how much she appreciated my honesty. She was raised in a religious family and had gotten married young and she had struggled with her marriage. It was a lot harder then she had expected. She felt like everyone around her had a perfect marriage because when they were asked a similar question, they all stated how it was amazing and how they loved every minute of it. No one seemed to be struggling except her. Now she knew she wasn't the only one.

I still have the opinion that marriage is hard. It's hard to keep the spice. It's hard to combine two lifestyles. It's hard to manage money and different childhoods. It's hard to change and it's hard to work with the change in others. Some may not find that hard at the beginning or at all for that matter but many do.

In a moment of frustration last night, I realized that I needed to step up for my husband. We both discussed certain changes that had taken place, things we missed, things we liked and disliked and how life had gotten ahead of us. We were both stressed out and are still working a lot on effective communication.

I realized I had been holding back in something that I can't even hold back in. I need to serve my husband and make him feel wanted and special even though at first, I may get nothing in return. I hadn't been working hard enough for that one person who deserves it and I need to change.

Marriage is full of good days and bad days, amazing days and ugly days. At least for me anyways. We don't always get along and other times we work together seamlessly. But he will always be my best friend and I love him more then I could ever imagine.

Even though sometimes it's hard too.