NEUSTAETER: On Marriage

What we did know was that there was nothing more that we wanted from lives apart: no experiences we would like to have as single people first, no years we wanted to make money or become established alone and no one else we wanted to try loving first or after.

We were young, poor, naive, ridiculously happy and incredibly sure.

Today, we feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to choose and commit to loving each other at such a young age. That is not to say that marrying young is better than when it is done with more maturity, just that we feel blessed that it’s how it happened for us.

17 years is really not very long in light of the lifetime that we committed to each other though, so we aren’t foolish enough to think we have it all figured out. We share our anniversary with a couple that we love and admire who are 34 years ahead of us on the marriage path and every year their beautiful example reminds me of how much we have yet to learn and how much life is still untested for us.

But 17 years of marriage is enough to have gained a tiny bit of wisdom about what is required to make a happy marriage work: fighting for and not with each other, never keeping secrets or talking poorly of each other, refusing shame or actions that would make us feel ashamed, living independent but never separate lives, offering and accept loving rebuke with grace, mutually serving one another and believing the best of each other.

And then asking for and receiving forgiveness when we both inevitably fail at all of those things.

We’ve discovered that if we want a relationship to last we both have to choose to love each other every single day. In the beginning of a relationship it’s incredible to feel all of the butterflies and enjoy all of the enrapture of each other, but we intentionally never fell in love; instead, we began choosing it every day.

Because marriages fall apart day by day and not overnight, we practise choosing love in the smallest things we do during the messy unfolding of life: washing the dishes, making a dinner plan, picking up your own socks, communicating the details, cleaning up the kids’ puke, and (perhaps the most difficult thing of all) sharing the covers.

Marriage means choosing to believe that if one of you loses then you both lose, so when it comes to each other you can never fight to win if it means the other doesn’t; in marriage we must choose to be kind and race to be the first to genuinely say “I’m sorry”.

If you’ve ever watched or had a marriage fall apart, the trust, authenticity and openness a healthy marriage requires can be overwhelmingly difficult. The desire to protect ourselves, build up walls, harbour secrets and keep parts of ourselves hidden can be extremely tempting, but doing so will never result in the intimacy that we intended or wanted for our relationship

There are no perfect marriages because there are no perfect people, but I’m here to tell you that despite the the pain and destruction that you may have witnessed, experienced or be experiencing because of a marriage gone bad, marriage does not have to be bad.

On the contrary, it is the most beautiful earthly thing that I have ever known and everything I love most about my life has been born of or elevated by it.

A loving, lasting marriage is a lot of sacrificial work, but it’s also possible and so much more than worth the risk and the work.

A marriage where you constantly choose each other means that not a day goes by when you wonder if you are loved, that there’s always someone on your side (even if they are telling you that you’re wrong), that you always have someone to celebrate with and that you never have to walk through your deepest valleys alone; it’s why I love marriage.

Don’t be afraid to choose marriage and everything that comes with it when the time and person is right and then prepare to do both the hard and beautiful work.

Choose to slow dancing together more often, kiss a little longer, laugh a whole lot harder, cheer for each other more loudly and say “I do” every single day, because even the work of choosing love is joy if you’re choosing it together.

ps. Happy 17th anniversary to Banker Husband who edits every column I write and has taught me more about agape love than I will ever be able to put into words.

——

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group

by Katie Neustaeter

NEUSTAETER: On Marriage

Our Community