Agree to Disagree

Last night as I laid in bed and watched my very tired husband drift off to sleep, I was filled with such love for him. He is one amazing man.

You see, yesterday was a long day. He was busy with work and church and I had what seemed a never-ending day with the kids, which was only made worse by my not feeling well. When the appointed time came for my husband to arrive home and he didn't show, I started to get a little annoyed. Especially since we had planned for me to run and get my hair cut in between work and his meetings at church. I was so very looking forward to a trim. Minutes kept passing by and still no husband. I went from annoyed to angry. Even though I knew he was probably detained in a meeting, I still was upset because he had promised to be home. So when my sweetie did finally get home I made sure to tear into him like a kid with presents on Christmas morning. It was not a pretty sight. Later, when I was more calm, we were able to talk things over. I knew what had delayed him was something that wasn't in his control, but I had still let myself get upset. It got me thinking about how much I love our marriage and how glad I am that we both can have those moments of anger or disagreements, and then move on. (It also got me wondering if I will ever not get so worked up over dumb things.)

I remember my mother-in-law once describing her marriage to me in these terms, "Divorce, never. Murder, yes." I loved it! You cannot find two people more hopelessly in love and goo-goo over each other than my in-laws. It is adorable to see them in their golden years still madly in love with each other. And I think part of it is they understand that disagreements are part of a healthy marriage. You have two people who are different that are trying to live through life together. Sometimes feelings get hurt, mistakes are made, and stupidity abounds. We're all imperfect and so we all end up doing dumb things. That's just life.

The important part of having a good marriage is understanding that mistakes and disagreements will happen. Yeah, I could and should have handled yesterday differently with my husband, but I didn't. However, he knows me and my temper and he knew it had just been a bad day. Our marriage wasn't in jeopardy, it just so happened that his being late was the last straw in a long day. He knows, oh my does he know, that I am imperfect. So he didn't hold any long lasting grudges over me for my out burst. Just like I don't hold it against him when he does something insensitive. (See, he rarely gets upset. But he still does make other mistakes because he's almost perfect.)

In this day and age people are ready to divorce over the first sign of trouble. If we all followed that ideal then we'd all be divorced. I had someone once give me a wise and very true piece of marriage advice. "If you're always agreeing and never have a fight, then someone is lying." Pretty much. Now I'm not talking about a knock down shouting match, but throw in two personalities and two people of the opposite gender and you are going to have flare-ups. It's just a fact of life. The key is to let them disappear once they are over and move on.

I love my husband. I love how I can feel safe expressing my feelings and opinions to him. It makes for some fun intellectual debates and it helps him know what I am feeling. Likewise, I am so glad he is open with me and lets me know when I've hurt him or done something stupid. It's all a part of growing together and becoming more united. Oh my, do I have a lot of bumps to smooth out for myself for that to happen, but it is happening because I have such a wonderful husband who believes in open communication and still loves me for it!