What I did last summer.

I officiallly have been married 9 years as of last august. My husband and I have known each other forever, you see he started as my brothers best friend. They were 12 and in boyscouts, and Andy (my brother) and Dave (my husband) became fast friends. There were years and years of sleep overs, and hanging out at our house. Dave has been in our family so long that I don"t remember meeting him, he was always just there. My point is? we have HISTORY. He was always just part of the family.


When we fell in love there were no questions. This was just it. I could not possibly see my life without him in it. I still can't. We fit, in a way I can't explain. He is my rock. He always has my back. He loves me for me, and really isn't interested in me trying to look good, dress nice or wear makeup-which come to find out is a good thing, since I spend my days home with the kids with my hair in a ponytail most days.


You slowly add things like careers, mortgages, more people, car payments, bills, pets. Then those kids get older and need more things, like clothes every season, preschool, lord knows what comes after 4 1/2. Life becomes about the kids and what they need. Everything else gets pushed to the side, including spending any time together, both parties are tired and slowly get frustrated with their role.


Nothing bad happens, over time you just turn your attention away from each other.

Go to work, come home, eat dinner put kids to bed, fall asleep right after they do-for him. For me up all day with the boys, run them around, do errands, make food, clean up food, clean up house, do laundry pay bills., play dates, make more food, clean up food, clean up house, stay up way to late at night because finally noone is asking me for anything. Except on the days I work. Then I am gone for the entire day...and he picks them up on his way home from work to do bedtime on his own-his mom always feeds them.

You get into this pattern of busy, if I get overtime I'm out of the house from 6 am to 12:30am. He often works late and picks up side work for his company so will work after work and on weekends. Right now we are in a one of those runs. When it is over he will have worked 21 days straight. He gets tired he gets cranky, more falls on me since he is not here, I get cranky. When he is cranky he is snippy, but not just average snippy, mean snippy. Then we fight. The boys notice he is gone and start to crave him, he comes in and they climb all over him, DADDY!! DADDY!!

The fact is that this man is doing every possible thing he can for this family. He works through back pain, he works days and days with no days off. It's hard to hold together a marriage, a relationship, hell, a friendship when no one has time to talk. When everyone gets resentful and feels under appreciated. When you are staring at days stretched ahead of you until when? When does this routine change? When do we have time for us to be us?

Things got strained, there was talking and crying and more talking. When your wife is sitting you down and telling you that I will be your wife I'm not going anywhere, but I want to be friends again, and if he could not be my friend than ok, I can make friends, but it was up to him. I married him because we were friends. We needed nothing more than each other to be entertained, we are more than happy to sit together in our house and hang out, watch tv, play with the kids. We live very simply.

For a while there was wondering, what if this doesnt turn around? What do I want to do? My answer surprised me, but I knew it was the right one. Even if things didn't get better, I cannot imagine my life without him. Good, bad or come what may, I need this man in my life.

Fortunately things came around, he heard me, I'm trying to correct the one thing that is super important to him, he is more present, back to the guy I married. What is amazing to me though is how quietly it all built up, how bad it got, and how talking to each other brought us right back to being us, together. I think this has put us back on the right path, but I'm paying attention to make sure.