Marriage
When October arrives I will have been married 25 years and I will have been in relationship with my companion (my partner, my spouse, my wife), longer than I have been alive. I’ve been thinking about this lately. My parents celebrated 50 years of marriage last year. They still love to dance. There are photos when their hair was a different color, when my sister and I were young and through our growing up, when mom and pop became empty nesters in their early 40’s and started living with themselves again. Maybe it was easier for them. They didn’t mini-van us to multiple venues for sports, dance, art, whatever. Our choices were limited and we were allowed to fail at growing up. They’ve learned the balance that fits them. Men joke about “learning the rules” when in a relationship. Maybe boundaries is a better word. I can hear my father say, “Look, when your mother is not happy it makes my world unhappy. That is no fun for anyone.”
So, this year as Lisa and I approach 25 years of marriage I’ll be blogging about our time together and posting article links on the topic of marriage. Here is an article from Huffington Post’s Carrie Cariello that does a good job setting the stage, I think, for a conversation about the married relationship. Everyday, I choose Lisa and trust she chooses me to walk through life together.
This is Marriage
Carrie Cariello | Huffington Post | Jan 25, 2014
Dressed in light blue scrubs, the surgeon popped into the room just as Joe settled into the hospital bed. The two of them started to go over the procedure, to talk about how Joe would not breathe on his own during the two-hour surgery. I focused my gaze on the toe of his brown shoe sticking out of the shiny bag.
And I thought; this is marriage. One day you’re shopping for shoes at the outlets and just a few weeks later, the new shoes your husband reluctantly bought for himself will sit, discarded, in a room down the hall while someone else breathes for him. Click here to read more.