“Love between man and a woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self denial.”~John Paul II
Monday, October 24th, is a big day for us. The 24th marks 30 years since Jay and I said “I do”. We started this wild and crazy journey together on shaky ground…young and in love and completely ignorant to living life as adults. While it’s true that “ignorance is bliss”, reality certainly crashes through soon enough and we both had lots of learning to do!
There was a big learning curve in those first few years. Learning to communicate with each other had its challenges. I had unrealistic expectations that Jay would understand my feelings and needs because….how could he not? It was so obvious!
Case in point, when our first son was just an infant, Jay had been at his college classes all day and then, shortly after he got home, was going to lift weights with a friend. He thought all was good because I hadn’t said otherwise. But in my head….I had convinced myself that he didn’t really love me anymore and didn’t want to be with us. So when poor Jay ran in from classes to change, he found a tearful wife who shared those worried thoughts. He was like a deer caught in the headlights! My fears were unfounded…(clearly, since I’m writing this blogpost;). But that moment was just the first of many over the years as we learned…and are still learning…how to communicate our needs. I’m still figuring out that men’s brains don’t work the same way our brains do, and being open and honest is important because they really have no clue what is going on in our minds!(Even after 30 years of marriage!)
Life is filled with so many different seasons, but the need to work on communication is something that has always continued to come around. Which makes sense because as life changes, our needs change, and how can we understand each other if we aren’t talking about how we are feeling? Unless our men finally get the ability to sense our subtle..(and sometimes not so subtle)… cues and learn to read our minds? Anyone have any luck with that? Me neither! So I guess we have to keep on talking about the real things on our heart…
Open and honest sharing is not always easy. Life gets busy. I might have something that’s bothering me but Jay’s really tired…so I decide to wait to address it. And the next night I’m really tired and don’t feel like dealing with it. And the next night one of our kids has needs that need to be met. It’s easy to push it all off until I finally just push the thoughts aside completely because “maybe it isn’t really that important anyway”. Except that it almost always is. By brushing it off, I’m actually keeping a part of my heart from my spouse and not giving him the opportunity to know me in that place. I’m also not allowing myself to be known in that vulnerable place and to be seen, acknowledged, validated and comforted.
You would think that after 30 years(!) I would have this communication thing down pat! Except I absolutely don’t. In fact, changes in life stages seem to highlight just how much we still have to work on and grow in as a couple…even in a good marriage. Life is so busy! We had so.many.years with babies and toddlers and lots of little kids to take care of. Then, for good measure, God gave us a couple of bonus babies to add to our crew. We had all the things most families have…lack of sleep, stomach bugs, school projects, years of sports practices and games. We have also had some big crosses like losing a child, raising a child with profound special needs, and having a fracture in our family. All of these seasons and struggles have brought their own challenges and highlighted the need to continue to connect as a couple. We have been blessed with a marriage that has survived all the statistics. We survived getting married very young, we survived after losing a child, and we have survived while raising a child with severe autism. Just one of these life situations has a high percentage of divorce…never mind all three! I know that it is lots and lots of Grace that has kept us together through all the storms we've endured and continue to endure in our marriage.
We are now entering a different stage of our marriage. We have only half of our children living under our roof. One is Peter, who is an adult but will always be with us and requires a whole different focus inplanning for his future as he ages and we age. Another is Ellen, who is also an adult and halfway through college and well on her way to being independent. Then there are Luke and Kate, who at 13 and almost 11 are very independent in their own ways. The dynamics of our family have changed greatly, and so have the conversations Jay and I have. We are trying to shift our focus to “smaller” family living.(I know 4 is still above average for many people, but for us it’s a lot smaller!) We want to concentrate on making memories for the kids still at home and “family vacations” don’t always mean traveling with our whole crazy crew.
There were lots of years that Jay and I struggled to spend time together as a couple. Now that our lives have shifted again, we need to make scheduling more regular “us” time a priority. It’s easy to just let the weeks pass by because they are so busy and full, but the day isn’t too far off that the kids’ schedules won’t fill our lives. We need to make sure that we have fun and meaningful connections as a couple now to help to keep our marriage strong and growing.
As our kids get older, the biggest change has definitely been for me. Over the years, Jay has coached little league teams for our older boys and, more recently, run youth groups for our teenagers and middle schoolers on a monthly basis for the past 11 years. I have always been the one at home taking care of little ones. Now things have shifted..at least a little. Right now, I'm taking care of my 18 month old twin grandsons three days a week. My days off give me some time to work on some personal growth amidst the many tasks of running a household. It's taken me several years to try and figure out what adventure God has for me to pursue in this new season of my life. It's hard to shift gears when more than two decades of my life had been spent carrying, birthing, nursing and nurturing babies and small children.
I still can’t believe that three whole decades have passed since we got married! That’s just such a long time! Most days I’m trying to figure out how I got this old and how fast life is going by. Nothing makes you face the truth to life going by and getting older more than your own children getting married and grandchildren being born! I could ignore the fact that I was getting older just fine until Andrew and Jon got married and before too long we were watching our grown kids having babies! I blinked and we were planning Sarah’s wedding and I am now completely steeped in the reality that time is passing faster than I would like it to.
This new season of life is growing and stretching me in new ways. It is teaching me to live in the moment and to be more present and attentive. Experiencing how much changes as my kids become adults and how fast it all goes makes me want to be more deliberate about how I live my life and spend my time. I also want to be more deliberate about spending time as a couple and setting goals and making plans for adventures, both big and small.
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| A selfie from our little 30th Anniversary adventure! |
God willing, Jay and I still have lots of life to live together. Communication….and lots of Grace(!)…will be key as our life continues to shift and our family changes and grows. I think St. Zelie, St. Therese of Lisieux’s mom, says it best:
“It is necessary that the heroic becomes daily, and the daily becomes heroic.”
May all of us have the Grace to live her message in our vocation of marriage!
