Stagnant

Let me start this post by saying that I have no plans or ideas of getting a divorce.  I love my husband dearly, but (like every other marriage I've observed) I'm not always in love with him.  Lately, it's been the occasional struggle to be in like with him.  This post is about those struggles.

Are you married?  If you are, is your marriage all rainbows and lollipops?  Do you not have the occasional moment where you look at your spouse and just wonder, "what if..."  or "why?"

This morning on the drive out to the country, a few older songs caught my attention.  This was the first one:



Do you remember when your relationship was fresh and exciting?  Those are moments we reflect on for years to come.  But what about when it becomes rote, even stale?  I love how this song points out that mundane is not necessarily a bad trait in a relationship.  It really got me thinking about when "the usual" went from fulfilling to tiresome.  Why do I feel so restless?

And then this song, which tore my heart:


I think this song answered my question.  I am being lazy in the maintenance of my marriage.  Are you guilty of that?  Taking the other for granted?  Do you recognize that, many times, they're putting up with their own not-so-exciting feelings about you?  Maybe sometimes they feel your laziness in uplifting them, and wonder if they did something wrong?  Or, even more disturbing, don't really care?  Why do we put less thought into the health of our marriages? 

An excerpt from The Fish, a Christian-in-a-Pop-Culture-World website, ""We Build," a song about the challenges of marriage, is already leaving audiences in tears. "Anyone who's been married for more than a half an hour knows that it's really difficult," Nichole says, "but people, especially Christians, rarely talk about how hard it is. I can't even tell you how many people came up to me after I first sang this song live, one after another with tears streaming down their faces, saying 'thank you.' Not because I unlocked some deep, dark secret to the success of marriage, but because I simply admitted that some days love is a choice. A choice that means rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty and trusting God for the blueprints. Sometimes it just helps to hear 'me too.'"

Truth time:  my real impetus on this reflection has something to do with my son.  Lately he's been yelling at me, and he thinks this is acceptable because he sees DH and I yelling at each other.  I have failed my child when it comes to showing him how to have a healthy marriage.  That scares me very much.

It scared me out of neutral and into gear.