Marriage

My BFF Julie (yes, we're twelve) hosts lots and lots of parties. She's totally the "Monica" of our circle of Friends.

At one particular Thanksgiving party, there was a young woman who was pregnant. She was still about six weeks away from delivering and everyone was excited for her. And as we women tend to do, we were sharing birth stories, pregnancy memories, etc.

One of the women there told the young woman that motherhood was probably going to be much harder than she anticipated. All the veteran moms nodded wisely and told her to just trust her instincts.

The pregnant woman went on to ask if we'd found motherhood to be harder than marriage.

Oh wow. See...I was the odd man out in that conversation.

I was one of the few (the only? It was a couple of years ago and I am getting old.) that said that I'd found marriage to be a lot harder than motherhood.

Oh gosh, motherhood is hard, really, realy hard. I question constantly if I'm doing the right thing, making the right choices. Do I say no too often, just for the sake of saying no? Am I too lenient? Too soft?

But marriage? For me, it's so, so much harder.

With the kids, well, at least my say is final. They know it and I know it.

Marriage is so much about compromise and sometimes, I'm not sure my husband remembers that. Honestly, I'm often having to remind myself of that fact. When you take two adults with strong convictions, give them tiny people to care for, throw them all in the same house and expect there to not be conflict, well, you're stupid. It's true.

Yes, I love my husband. But...there are times when I have to remind myself that he's not out to drive me out of my mind. He doesn't deliberately do things just to irritate me. Once I remind myself of that, it makes any situation better.

We're trying to buy a house. Tom is very competitive. He wants to win. So even house-hunting has turned into a game/competition. It's making me crazy. Add to that, he and our realtor are a lot alike.

So...frustration abounds.

But I love this man. I took vows to honor him and I'm trying to do that.

See, the biggest problem is he's a morning person and I'm not. I don't like mornings and I'm not pleasant in the mornings.

You'd think after seven years of marriage, he'd know that and avoid me in the mornings. You'd be wrong. So very, very wrong.

On Tuesday mornings I have to get up at 4am (oooh, it hurts just to type that) so that the girls and I can be on the road at 5:30 to go to my mom's for three nights, four days.

And while I'm plodding around, barely awake, packing food, combing my hair, putting on my socks, he's in the kitchen, making himself come coffee and singing.

SINGING! At 4am! I know...grounds for divorce, right? Except, I like this guy. So I've decided to try and appreciate his cheerfulness...even at 4am. Because it could be worse. We could have two grouchy Gus' blundering around the house at 4am. Wouldn't that be pleasant?