When I am hot HOT and my husband has gotten on my last nerve, I seriously ask myself this question. But the first time I asked myself this question was the day he proposed. This wasn’t a rhetorical question out of anger or emotion. I was truly contemplating and waiting on the answer.
You know the life long dream us girls have. The one that starts with us falling in love at first sight with the man of our dreams and living a blissful life full of all ups and absolutely no downs. The dream where we marry our best friend and we’re so compatible that we rarely disagree. If lightning strikes and we do disagree, it’s handled with communication and simple compromise. The dream of 2 kids, a cute little dog, and a picket fence? Yeah, I never had that dream. Growing up I never wanted to be married. Now that I think about it, it’s kind of weird. I saw a beautiful marriage growing up in my own household. My parents were married at the age of 20, had 2 kids, traveled the world, I rarely saw any arguments, never any big fights, I mean it was as perfect as a marriage could get (as far as what I saw). Most of my parent’s friends and siblings were also married. I mean that’s all I knew, but I still didn’t want to get married.
As I matured into a young woman and started engaging in relationships, my desire for marriage continued to diminish. All my relationships started off great but ended in tears. I was cheated on in almost every relationship. I lived by the sayings everything will come to an end and nothing lasts
forever. I would actually daydream about how my relationships would come to an end. Because of my pessimistic views, when I started dating my husband, I never envisioned marriage.
Why Did I Get Married
To be completely honest, I didn’t even see a long-term relationship in our future, hell I didn’t see a future. So, when he started talking about marriage at an early stage in our relationship, I didn’t know how to respond.
But, something was different about this man. For the first time ever, I had someone that truly cared about making me happy in every sense of the word. This man loved me! If I was hungry, he would drive an hour to bring me food, if I was sick, he was at my bedside with soup, sprite, and medicine. If I was sad, he would jump through hoops to make me smile. My brother jokes about one time at dinner I was cold, and my husband walked about 20 mins to get me a jacket and let his food get cold. He was the most thoughtful and genuine person I had ever met.
He actually proposed twice.
The first time was very intimate. With just him and I, in my bedroom, he got down on one knee and popped the question. He didn’t know this but I was speechless. Not speechless because I was excited my lifelong dream of being married was coming true. I was speechless because I didn’t think I wanted to be married. I actually never said yes in that first proposal but I led him to believe I was saying yes. I needed time to think about my answer and the 5 seconds he gave me while on one knee was not enough time.
Over the next few weeks, I was completely confused. I loved him. I loved his love. And, I wanted him in my life forever but I didn’t want to get married. My friends came to visit over the next few weeks and I told them what happened. They were just as confused as I was. We had only been together a year and they knew I had no desires for marriage.
The 2nd proposal
Over the next few weeks, I had time to really think. As I thought about my future, I couldn’t imagine my life without him. However, the thought of life with a partner was terrifying. I thought about how I couldn’t come and go as I please. And how I would have to consider someone else’s opinion when making major decisions. How we would have conflicting opinions and I would have to sacrifice what I believed to be right to make someone happy. I thought about how impossible it seemed to blend families. My son was not head over heels about the idea of me marrying him either. I thought about if we got into a big fight, how I would not be able to just leave or make him leave. I thought about every reason not to marry him but then I had an epiphany. I knew that whatever the issue, whatever challenge we faced, whatever disagreement we had, as long as I had someone that loved me this deep, then we could get through any and everything.
The next proposal was perfect! It wasn’t on a private island, with flowers everywhere, or my friends and family hiding behind a curtain waiting to pop out and scream “SHE SAID YES!!!”. It was much better than that. I was sitting in my living room with my parents waiting for him and my son to come downstairs so we could make it to our dinner reservations timely. As I yelled *annoyed* “HURRY UP!! LET’S GO!!” My son came walking down the stairs with a heart-shaped basket filled with roses. As he reached the last stair, he (my son) got down on his knee with my husband behind him and said “will you marry us?” This time, after my epiphany, I was ready. As tears of joy filled my eyes, I said YES!! The rest is history…
3 years later
Today is my 3-year anniversary. The last 3 years are far from the fairytale you dreamt of. Things are hard as hell!! All the what if questions I had, are slowly but surely being answered one by one. I sometimes hear people say that love should be easy and they are right. Love is the easy part. Love is the part that keeps us together when we are tired. Love is the part that makes us say sorry even when we don’t think we’ve done anything wrong. It’s the part that makes us miss each other after we’ve gone hours gifting the other with the silent treatment. Love is the part that makes us try one more time every single time, even if it’s the 10th time. The tough part is marriage.
It’s only been 3 short years but we’ve had a fair share of challenges. I got married because I wanted to do life with someone that loved me passionately and completely. I wanted someone to raise my family with. I wanted someone to create memories with. To laugh, love, build, and serve the Lord with. And despite the challenges, we have done just that.
That is why I got married!
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