Monday, September 23, 2019
Good thoughts about marriage
Marriage isn’t hard like a marathon, where you run and you train and you run some more. It’s not about solo endurance. It’s not about two people working tirelessly to accomplish a goal, it’s not about training for and accomplishing what I want.
Marriage can very much be about growth and change and getting through the difficulties. But it can also be about enduring the same difficulties year after year with zero change. It can be about love and happiness. But it can also be about tolerance and frustration.
Marriage is like being in a canoe with my spouse. I can paddle my little booty off (ok, lets not kid ourselves, my booty isn’t little) but if my spouse isn’t paddling just as hard in the exact same direction, all that I will accomplish is paddling us in circles. My spouse and I have to decide what we can and will do TOGETHER. Let that little nugget sink in.
I can’t go anywhere in marriage without him. I’m stuck in this blasted canoe. If I ask him to just rest, I’ll direct our boat, I will tire quickly and likely become resentful. If I try to convince him to paddle with me, then maybe he will, but maybe he won’t. Maybe he doesn’t want to go that fast, maybe his arms are tired, maybe he doesn’t know how to paddle.
When I entered this marriage I thought it was about two people coming together and running the marathon of life together. Each separate, but each equally dedicated, each pushing and us finishing together. But somehow I ended up in a canoe with someone that doesn’t canoe the way I do. Our goal may be the same, but our way of getting there is so incredibly different. I’m a fast paddler, I want to push and grow and move through life quickly. I am constantly looking around to see what I can do to make things better, should this ice-chest be right here? What if we moved it over there, would we move faster?? I’m a fixer, a doer, a grower, all at very fast paces. I’m constantly evaluating and reevaluating things to optimize. My partner is not so. He just wants to let the water carry us, he wants to paddle when it’s necessary, and conserve his energy. He is patient and slow moving, deliberate in his decisions, often taking much longer than I’m comfortable with.
My biggest surprise in marriage has been that just because I think something is right, essential, necessary, and the way things need to be, doesn’t mean that’s the way we paddle our canoe.
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