Let's be real...Marriage is HARD! (a day after Valentine's day post)

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen

Marriage is hard, there are no two ways around it.  It's a constant compromise, & sometimes quite disappointing.  Even when you love one another. Because while you love each other, sometimes what your need of your spouse is different than what your spouse can give.  It's hard to give, when you feel stressed over all that life throws you & you feel like you have nothing left to give to someone else.  Life is so full of must do, must be, must everything for all of us... that between all the things you or your spouse have going on, the thing that often times gets left out is what you need more than anything which is showing in smalls way that you still love one another.  It's true, a happy marriage requires work, but when one or both don't feel good either from an illness or some other stresses in life.  When life feels so exhausting already, having to "work" at your marriage might just be something you don't seem to think you can do.   I used to think that people only got divorced because they didn't love one another or because they wanted someone else.  But I don't think that anymore... I think sometimes it just becomes all too much & while I believe in "through sickness & in health" & "'til death do us part"  I  can understand why some marriages end.  It's hard... & exhausting to continually not only work out your own issues but remember how those affect your partner's life as well.  When you're young you think of things in very straightforward terms... if you love one another you get married & you live happily ever after.  But I don't believe that anymore... I know it's hard & I imagine it's too hard for some. However for me, I believe in the marriage vows we took & I want nothing more than to stay married forever.  But like everything in life I can understand how just wanting something is not always enough. But for me, it's more than "wanting" it's knowing, and what I know is this.... I love my husband & I know that he loves me too,So all the work all the moments of my marriage when it's hard, & seems almost too hard.  I'll remind myself of Dory in "Finding Nemo" and I'll "Just keep swimming... " cause for all it's heartache, the truth is there is a reason you married your spouse, & a reason you committed yourself to stay together in "sickness and in health" & it's still there buried at times, but there at the core of my marriage & probably yours to.. the love that you feel for one another & that they are still the one person who has your back above anyone else in your life.  That to me is marriage, & that has never changed from the day we said our "I do's" & hopefully never will & so that's why I keep swimming even when the water is cold & murky, cause it's my marriage & I have faith that another tide will come along & take us to some crystal blue water where we can float for a while & all the work & time will have been worth it.