This month we celebrated our 6th Wedding Anniversary, apart! My husband was in Portland for work and I was at home in Manchester with the 3 kiddies...who said Romance was dead?! "Wow, we made it!" I think I write this every year in his card. I love sharing positive experiences on Facebook, but I won't be the person that declares their undying love for their best friend and soulmate on their status for their Anniversary. I am sure there are days you feel like this, but after 3 children there are probably more days you could punch your partner. It has been a rollercoaster, going from being each other's world to passing ships. Dragging yourselves through sleep deprivation and ill kids, and workload, it is tough. Going from one child to two is huge, and going to three is even harder. On our actual Anniversary, even though we were oceans apart (well, just the Atlantic), this year I felt something different. A realisation that we have both grown up, and I felt grateful for the rollercoaster that has made us stronger people. It sort of concreted how proud I am of us both. Yes, you people who have been married 20 years are probably thinking "get a grip child, what do you know with your 6 years of marriage?" My great grandfather told my mum that the first 7 years are the worst, so I am quite excited we only have 1 more bad year to go *winky face.*
Like child-birth, I think there are a few untold secrets that you just don't need to disclose to the Bride before her big day. My husband and I got married in a Catholic Church. We were obliged to go on an 'Engaged Couples' course. The lady said to us, "There will be times in your marriage that you will hate your partner." Wow, I thought, I could never hate him (forward 6 years and 3 children, hands up, maybe a couple of times I have!) I totally get that theory of 'Love and Hate' being so close together. A vicar once told a friend "You should always have your Wedding Day filmed, so when you are going through a tricky patch you can watch it and remember the reason why you are together." Then an old School friend told me that when I have my baby, I will love the baby more than my husband. Wow, this Wedding malarkey sounded great fun before I even entered into it!
Maybe we go into marriage expecting problems, could this be the reason things fall apart nowadays? (That is a rhetorical question by the way, as I know there are serious reasons why things do breakdown too). I read an article that suggested celeb and chat magazines were a huge factor in the breakdown of families as people are wanting to aspire to these families, and think it should be like this. However, if you dig a bit deeper, lots of these celebs are in re-hab, suffering from drug addiction, alcoholism. Do people compare too much nowadays of what our lives should entail? What about making your own happiness and not being affected by what everyone else is doing. At the end of the day, being happy is what it is about. I remember when I was younger an expression my best friend's dad used, "What's one man's meat is another man's poison." I think at the time he was referring to the boys we fancied fancying other girls and not us. The expression was probably a bit lost on us. Now a little older and wiser, I sort of like this expression, apart from the words 'meat' and 'poison'. I like the concept. Different things make different people happy, and you just have to find your 'happy'. After children, your vows do seem like a blurry distant memory, but you both chose each other for a reason, for better and for worse, and don't forget that.
So, please promise after the School run, dropping off the kids at Scouts or Rainbows, after dealing with the tantrums, and breaking up fights. When you have cooked and dished up dinner, cleared up, tidied up, finished homework, ran the bath, read a few stories and then got them all into bed. With that tiny bit of energy left that you have (ok, so that energy doesn't exist, but for the sake of my blog post pretend it does), grab your other half, stick on that wedding song, slow dance, and remember how you felt that day. What you can tell the Bride is that it won't be easy, but it will be worth it.
What was your Wedding Song?
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