When Mark and I were first married we lived in a house that his parents owned. We got married in 2008, months before the whole financial disaster and housing bubble burst, and after watching all of that go down we were pretty content to be renters for life. Well, when his parents came home from the mission field we had to decide whether we wanted to find a new place to rent, a place to buy, or live with his parents. Oh, another thing: I was 6 months pregnant when we had to make this decision.
Needless to say, a 6 month pregnant person can be, well, crazy. I was no exception. Seriously, I cried every single day of my second trimester because I kept listening to songs by Plumb. Oh, and don’t forget that time I almost murdered my hubby over a Nutty Buddy.
I was insane even without the OMG WE ARE HAVING A BABY AND WE HAVE NO HOME drama.
I was just so… disappointed. I wanted a place to call our own. I wanted to nest. I wanted to have our own little corner of the world. Simply put, it wasn’t going how I expected/wanted/demanded, and I was pretty upset because, like any awesome wife, it was all my husband’s fault (can I get an “Amen”?)
Mark wanted to find our own place, too, but he just didn’t seem eager enough to me. He seemed really content to live with his parents until after the baby was born rather than rushing into a 30-year long “We bought a house that we kinda like” commitment. He didn’t understand what I was so antsy about.
All of this makes sense, honest it does, in hindsight and without baby cooking hormones raging inside of me. But at the time I thought he was insane and the sole source of all of my frustrations.
I wasn’t thinking about leaving Mark. Not even close. But I did feel like we were running a three-legged race at two very different speeds and in potentially different directions. So not what I thought I had signed up for when we said “I do”.
That’s what I think is so beautiful about the vows we make. All of the things I love about my husband (he’s honest, thoughtful, never one to simply “give in”) were things that I absolutely hated from December 2010 to March 2011. But our vows, the promise to stick it out even when we are pretty sure NOTHING is going right, give us the time to regain composure, perspective, and love.
I don’t even remember how we resolved it. I just remember lots of tearful and frustrated conversations in the bathroom. And lots of holding each other’s faces, looking into each other’s eyes, and reminders of “We’re on the same team. Don’t forget that”. So many times when throwing up the hands and crying “Uncle” seemed much more appropriate. But vows are designed specifically for these times, right? This is when you put your head down and trudge through.
We moved into our apartment ONE WEEK before we had Otis. For three months we ran one of the hardest parts of the three-legged race called marriage. And we survived thanks to the promises we made years ago.
Today we’re celebrating love stories that show us when we actually needed our vows. I’ll be linking up the stories I see on the blogs I love. Check out our Facebook page for an up to date list of bloggers sharing their Vowentines stories.
Come celebrate Vowentines with us on February 16th. We’ll be renewing vows and celebrating this kinda boring, kinda messy, kinda awesome love that bwings us togetha. Get more info here (register before February for the Early Bird discount!)
Other Vowentines Day Bloggers (I can’t express how thankful I am to each and every one of you. Your thoughts and advice are PRICELESS!)
Natasha at Hello! Happiness shares about keeping your vows after the baby arrives:
Marriage is hard work, it’s a constant struggle and we have issues just like everyone else. For me, I thought having a baby would be the icing on the cake, and would make life perfect, but in those first few weeks and months, we fought a lot.
Katelyn at Hi from Colorado shares about being pre-vows (they’re getting married this summer!) and being committed enough to follow each other all over the world:
b quit his job right along with me, he left his friends just as i left mine and we drove into a city where we knew no one. he never needed to remind me of that – to guilt trip me into coming. he simply asked me to. and i agreed. because that’s a part of our unspoken vows.
Jessie from Modern Vintage Events shares about being unfulfilled at a job and how it caused her to zone out on life in general, and her marriage in specific:
I would have these elaborate daydreams where I would just run away from everything – skip town –the country even– and not look back. I wasn’t present in my marriage – I went through the motions of daily married life, but to be perfectly fair, I wasn’t a very good wife. All I cared about was my own misery.
Becca from Modern Vintage Events shares about the journey from husband and wife to roommates to friends all because of hockey:
I remember at one point thinking that if I had enough guts I would just leave because this wasn’t how marriage was supposed to be. Thankfully those thoughts were fleeting because this is exactly what marriage is. It is ups, it is downs, and sometimes, just like in Nottingham, the downs outnumber the ups. Is this normal? Totally. Did I look at my marriage and feel like it had failed? Absolutely.
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