Ok, that's enough...now I will explain. Nathan and I have been married a month shy of eight years. He isn't still married to the wide-eyed, heed over heels, Bible-totin', school girl he fell in love with. I am no longer wedded to the shaggy-haired, thift-store-wearin', guitar-strummin', free spirited boy that once wooed me. We have changed over the years and in a sense have been married to different people at one time or another. We began as the honeymooners, locked in our apartment day and night (reading and doing crossword puzzles, of course.....eeeehhmmm...moving on). In the next year or so, we leveled out and began devoting our time to Bible-thumpin' Christianity, where we preached to any and everyone we met and if you didn't attend a church or play music for the Lord, we didn't converse with you.
Life began to slowly change us: job changes, a miscarriage, old friendships fizzling and new ones beginning, and the unexpected conception and birth of our son, thus began marriage number two. We enjoyed our daily life but with new responsibilities surfacing, something had to give. The first thing that went was our intimacy. Late night breastfeeding sessions for me and early work days for Nathan were taking a toll on us. We barely had enough energy from the sleep-deprived nights to make it through the next day, much less throw in the effort to get cleaned up, look sexy and create some sparks that night. Naturally, we progressed into our second marriage: the partnership.
We found different outlets to liven up our relationship, I took my first step towards a dangerous obsession. Taking two diet pills at a time, working out twice a day, and seeking attention wherever I could find it. Nathan took his first step towards distancing himself. He drowned himself in his sports, his work and whatever else could fill his time. We both went out and partied the nights away with friends, not really excited about our marriage or each other for that matter. We entered into a partnership. We talked about important things: Owen, bills, plans for the week, etc...but it never went past surface chats. The further we submerged ourselves in these things, the more we came to grips with the reality that our marriage and life as we know it may be over. We made off-the-wall plans and agreements about what needed to be done. We would go through counseling, just to mark it off the list, then we would go our separate ways. We envisioned this was what would ultimately make both of us happy.
I can't explain to you what happened that year. All I can say is that there was a moment in time when I came face to face with myself, who I was at the moment, and who God wanted me to be. They didn't add up. We had almost thrown away our marriage. If I am being honest, I believe we both stayed together after that for Owen. We didn't want him to suffer. We loved each other deep down but we had no idea how to rekindle romance after everything that had happened. How do you go from being roommates to lovers again? The year after that was an emotional hell for the both us, paddling backwards down an uphill stream with no end in sight. We only knew a few things at that moment: we loved Owen, we loved God and we had to try to make it work.
Somewhere in the midst of our living hell, God became real. We didn't have to ask him to intervene, he just did. The love that kept us together was Owen, the love that bound us together was God's. The words they say at weddings never rings more true than it does to Nathan and I today: "What God has joined together, let no man separate." Even in our most concentrated effort to tear our marriage apart, we were unsuccessful. Why? Because God joined us together. When the battles raged and threatened our union, we desperately pled for guidance, and he was there...waiting, ready to fight for us.It thrills my heart to tell you as of a year ago, I married a new man. Yes, this will be my third marriage. This man is my companion. We are like a well-oiled machine. It's unrealistic to enter a marriage believing you will always be the same. Time, age and experiences change you. Some for the better, some for worse. But if you can't learn to love the person at their worst, you sure don't deserve them at their best. Do we have our moments? Yes. Do we fight? Of course. But we put time and effort into our marriage. We listen to each other. We say we are sorry, A LOT! We learned our relationship comes first at all costs. And most importantly, we learned not to ever forget our "glue" that holds us together...God. You see the funny thing about glue is it's bonding properties. You need it to bond you together, but if you try to pull one of the pieces apart, one or both of you will break. You need glue. You need the Lord.
