It's been an interesting journey to be married and hear about the couples we have known that have not 'made it' so to speak.
Early in your marriage you sometimes suspect what issues are glaring with some couples and guess what their destiny might be. As if others' marital satisfaction level and length of marriage is a game to place a bet on.
Years pass and you lose contact with some, not with others. You hear rumors and confirmations of some separating, many going to counseling, others officially getting divorced, and a few find their eternal companion actually prefers their own gender.
Each time my heart tears a little, but then heals, at the word of anything less than perfect in the lives of those we know. It's funny, sometimes it's the couples you thought were most connected or looked towards as an example. So when that example of what you thought was ideal falls apart, it leaves you a little shaken.
Not that there is anything to worry about in my personal marriage, I honestly can say we have learned a lot in 8+ years about how to communicate with one another and work well together on peaks and valleys that happen. The way we have learned to work together works for us. So what didn't for the others?
My immediate urge is to call and get the story from both sides of the break-ups. To get to the nitty gritty and discover which moment turned the hard part of their relationship into the slippery slope that ultimately ended the whole thing. Not to be nosey, but to learn from it what NOT to do. But that's not how life works. You can't really assume the same path of challenge will cross your feet.
While discussing recent sad results of a distant relative's marriage, Mike made a good point. When I exclaimed "but they seemed to have done everything right?!"
He said that past tense is the problem. It's making sure you are doing things right in the present tense that is most important. Which we pretty much feel we are, doing things right for what works for us and our marriage. And it will be good to continue to check in with each other on what the definition of that is for each of us as time goes on. True love is hard to find, sometimes you think you have true love and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego and a couple of nude people jump out of your bathroom blindfolded like a [friggin] magic show ready to double team your girlfriend... oh wait, that's not real. But we're waiting for it to be someone else's reality because it's pretty hilarious in that movie.
