What is Love? A Marriage Story

What is Love? Each of us has a different version because it isn’t the same for everyone. I know it isn’t easy. There are ups and downs like a roller coaster. The highs are high and the lows are low with a lot of curves in between. Sometimes the ride stops and you can take a deep breath while your heart rate comes back to normal.

This week has been really great for me and my husband. I don’t necessarily measure time by the week, but right now that’s my honest answer. A couple of weeks ago, I could barely speak two words to him. I may write, but verbal communication isn’t always my strong suit. I am a tough lady to please and nobody knows that better than Freddy because he bears the brunt of it.

We recently had a thing happen …

I wanted to move and downsize to a smaller house. I was trying to figure out how to make it easier on us financially and make a plan for our retirement. Right now we don’t have one. Life just didn’t happen that way for us.

We are both in our mid 50’s and have no plan for the future except we are doing it together. He is self-employed as a barber and I have been babysitting since I had Joe 19 years ago. We pay our bills and live a normal middle-class life, but no retirement in place. Our home is our only real investment.

This past fall, I told him that I wanted to move as soon as possible. Joe and Bella will be done with school in two years. We have to stay in the state because of their educational restrictions, but after that, we can downsize and move to a state with fewer taxes. He doesn’t want to move. Freddy isn’t ready and wants to be in our house for another ten or so years.

Our compromise is we have to do some work in the house because very little home improvement was included in that normal middle-class life we have been living. The only time we had any updates was when our daughter, Christine, started a fire while cooking 18 years ago. We didn’t get a new kitchen, just fixed the one we had. That’s it, folks!

It didn’t matter, because It was more important what went on in the home, not the aesthetics. Well, the home has emptied with only one full-time child and another at college, so I have more time to dwell on the problems.

To fulfill that compromise, we have to refinance our almost paid for home and do some work to the house. I want a wall taken down so I can have a kitchen with an island and sunlight streaming in. For all these years, I dreamt of having a back door that leads to somewhere I can have a cup of coffee. I will live with the old bathrooms, wallpaper, and lack of closets.

Very excitedly, we start the process only to find out two months later, they won’t give us the money.

We had to get rid of a condo in 2018 via a recommended short sale, and now we are being punished. I can’t get into that because it’s another story unto itself, but the banks will not give us our own money. This was all going on during the holidays and by mid-January when we knew it was over. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially him. Us tax-paying, hard-working, good citizens who pay all our bills on time, got screwed.

I blamed my husband because I didn’t want to do this short sale. I said there would be problems and he assured me that would not happen. Apparently, everyone he talked to said it would not affect our credit. Well, it did. I took it out on him because that’s what I do. Love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ( I guess I have some work to do!)

Who else am I going to blame?

I can blame the powers that be, they don’t give a shit about me and I can’t pick up a phone and call them. I take it out on the one who I love the most.

As I mentioned, one of my problems is poor lighting. I complain about the light in the house daily as my eyesight gets worse. Every time I walk in a room, I turn the lights up. Even in my bedroom, I can’t see the socks in my drawer – are they brown or black – the light is so damn dull.

I don’t blame my husband for that, but I say these things out loud whenever I walk in the room. It is my way of getting out my frustration. Turning those lights on high usually comes with the exclamation, ‘ and God said, let there be light!‘ That’s the smart ass in me. Freddy never acknowledges it. He ignores me because it’s silly stuff and knows I do it to be a smart ass. He loves me the way I am. Love is patient.

This past week, I noticed all the lights in our house were brighter. I kept asking him … what did you do? Why is it so bright all of a sudden? Are these different bulbs? But I know what he did. He changed the bulbs and bought ones that are like bright sunlight. Love is kind.

He didn’t say anything, he just did it because he listens. Freddy waited patiently for my anger to go away. He knows I have to get it all off my chest and complain but I will acquiesce and move on in a few days. We do this dance with each other often when tensions are high, but it’s our dance.

Is he perfect? No …

My husband snores. We have an extra room and I can go in there and sleep, but I don’t. I will roll a pillow around my head every night causing more wrinkles on my face, but I can’t imagine not sleeping with him. He radiates warmth and I feel safe. I know he will take care of me. Love always protects, always trusts.

I know he will somehow figure out a way to finish the work we already started. One day I will get my kitchen but will remain patient. Always hopes.

The anger is gone and for the last two months, I have been living with a sheet hanging over a back door from work that was started and not finished. Love does not boast, it is not proud.

I will count my blessings and remember that I still have it so much better than so many others. This wife will go to sleep next to her snoring husband, who changed the lightbulbs and brought me the sunlight the only way he could for right now. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world, knowing that he is going to love me with all those extra wrinkles. It always perseveres.

Although, we don’t hit all the love is kind psalm … nothing is perfect. Our love isn’t perfect, but what is? As Bruce Springsteen says …

It ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough.
Man meets woman and they fall in love,
But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough,
And you’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above

if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love.

Bruce Springsteen

I love you, honey, and as I sit here watching you do the dishes from the breakfast I made, I know we may not be perfect, but we are perfect for each other. Love never fails.

Much Love Always,

Sandy

#enlighten #empower #inspire #educate and #love