Plain Advice

Marriage is hard. If you are married, and disagree with this statement, I would say that one of the following must be true for you:

1- You are still on your honeymoon

2- You are in denial

3- Someone in your marriage is not being honest

4- You are married to one of my brothers (they are apparently perfect husbands)

Don’t get me wrong here. I love my husband, and I plan to stay married. Marriage is good, much better than I thought it would be before I actually got married.

But still, marriage is hard.

Why is it so hard?

Well, you take a man and a woman (in many ways, polar opposites), and marriage creates a situation where pretty much everything the other does affects them (directly or indirectly).

I am a kind, loving, compassionate, tolerant person. I work everyday with drug addicts, neglectful parents, people who have done some unspeakable things, and I have compassion on them. I am known for being understanding, a really good person to talk to. I really am a very nice person.

But when it comes to my husband, its a different story. He steps one way in the wrong direction and it gets me all riled up. And the reason for this inconsistency in how I act?

Well, its easy. My client who is addicted to cocaine is only my client. Duh. But my husband, who walked with muddy shoes on the kitchen floor I just mopped is my husband. And I have to clean the floor again. Never mind the fact that the reason his shoes were muddy was because he took the trash out in the pouring rain like I asked him to. He should have known better and wiped his feet before he came in the kitchen. How could he?

My client never messes up my house, and never disagrees with me on how I should spend money.

But like I said, my client is just my client. And my husband is my husband. Which, in the long run, really means that he is the one that I should show the most kindness, compassion, respect and love toward. Who knows where my clients, or even my friends will be in 10, 20, 30 years. Even my children will be grown and have lives of their very own. But my husband will be the one who is still my life, and I want that relationship to be strong, sweet, and full of happy memories.

This entry is my Intro to the section of this website about solutions in marriage. I am far from having the perfect marriage (ya think??), but I am very committed to this very important relationship, and I am always looking for solutions to problems that inevitably arise within it.

And now I would like to take this opportunity to say to my husband “I love you honey. Thanks for taking out the trash”.

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