Category: Marriage Stuff

Sep 08

This Life

Marriage.

Hubbin and I have been together for almost eleven years now. That seems so crazy; I feel myself torn between thinking about how long that sounds, and trying to remember a time without this man. I cannot, and that makes me smile.

I know there’s a lot of jokes about marriage and it being a trap, or how the wedding day is the best day of your life, but I feel like that could not be further from the truth. There are hard times, absolutely; it’s hard to live forever with any one person. Anything worth having takes work.

I was happy on our wedding day, but I would say that today, I am happier. The couple in this photograph have no idea what is in store for them.

weddingThey have no idea that they will face things that take so many marriages down. They don’t know that they’ll mourn the loss of a baby together, and in different ways that will seem to pull them apart. They’ll go through job changes and career changes, and she’ll lose herself for a period of time, but he’ll have faith that she’ll be back one day. They know they’ll probably have a child together, but they don’t know that they’ll have a Charlotte. He doesn’t know she’ll find Jesus, and she doesn’t know that he’ll teach her who He is by the way he loves her.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Jun 29

Blah

usI have writer’s block! Get me out of the jail that is my brain.

I just banged out a political rant and it is so badly written and choppy that it got thrown in the incinerator.  Metaphorically. Possibly literally if this computer keeps annoying me.

So I have nothing in the form of entertainment or wit, but I do have this adorable picture of me and the man who lights all my fires and starts all my smiles. We took this on our recent vacation, which was lovely. I got to relax this vacation.

I got to relax.

RELAX.

And READ BOOKS.

My kids are old enough that they don’t need me every second of the day. And I got to LAY DOWN.

Also? I saw brown stuff smeared on my gym tag the other day and I wiped it off without thinking twice. It never occurred to me that it could be anything other than chocolate. Do you know what this means?

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 19

The Family Picture

familyGrumpy Preschooler arrived home the other day with her packet of papers, eager for me to see them. As I flipped through them, proud of her work, I got to the last one – a picture she’d drawn of a little person and two taller people. I asked her what the picture was, and she replied “our family” and smiled. I asked–with trepidation–where Sissy was, and I felt my heart actually wrench (can hearts wrench?) in that moment, when I heard her reply softly, “At [her dad’s].”

And there were depths of my soul that actually hurt in that moment.

Happy Blonde, who is 11 now, has always lived primarily with me, and since her (very involved) father lives in a different jurisdiction, she sees him every weekend. This summer, we essentially switched custodial status, and she spent Monday – Friday with him, and weekends with us. It was my first taste of being a non-custodial parent–and it was awful. I learned the gritty part of it – how quickly the visitation goes by, how hard it is to readjust in a short period of time, and how it’s nearly impossible to have a child on weekends feel like they are part of the working household. It’s hard to mold them and discipline them, because you hardly want to spend what little time you have picking battles.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

May 11

Kids Are Resilient.

This picture was taken the day we separated.

This picture was taken the day we separated.

They are, aren’t they? Kids can withstand so much; they’re just so resilient.

I hear this a lot when adults justify the decisions they make; I actually said it once to justify my own divorce. Kids are resilient; and she’s young! At five months old, she’ll never remember us together, so it’s not like she’ll miss having her mom and dad together. It will be her normal. 

Lots of rationalizations, there. In retrospect, it wasn’t actually important that I end my marriage sooner because it wouldn’t actually be better for her. It would actually be better for me.

It hurts just to type that, y’all. To admit it, right there in black and white. Sometimes transparency is for the birds. I convinced myself that The Oldest One would be better if mama was happy. You know what didn’t occur to me, though? Making the best of the situation. Maybe not making it obvious that we were unhappy. Perhaps acting like a grown up. You know what kids don’t do? Analyze their parents to see if their happiness is at an adequate level. Kids are naturally kind of narcissistic, and I don’t think they really care if their parents are happy because I don’t think they notice, unless there is abuse.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 22

And now, a bathroom break (or a break FROM the bathroom)

Hubbin chose our vacation spot this year and I have to completely give it to him, he did phenomenal job. Browsing flipkey.com, he showed me a listing and asked if he was reading it right.

Listed was a “Castle in the Sky“, high in the Smoky Mountains, and located in Sylva, NC. Built on 75 wooded acres, it had exactly what I wanted…a pool. And not any pool — a private pool. No yelling kids aside from my own, a pool that overlooked what appeared to be paradise? And affordable. And available.

So he booked it for the

second week of August. With 3600 square feet and comprised of five bedrooms and as many bathrooms, we asked Jason’s best childhood friend and his family to join us, and they accepted much to our delight.

The drive down was pretty uneventful. We pulled over at an overlook and I offered to take a picture of a family for them, and they happily accepted and returned the offer. So, we posed, our little family of four, and it wasn’t until I got back to the car that I saw this picture and just…laughed. Grumpy Toddler strikes again. That poor woman was just trying to do a good deed and take our family picture, and Grumpy Toddler looked at her like she wanted to burn down her house.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 18

I hate this bathroom.

burn-it-down

I wish

Ok, so we stayed on vacation an extra day because the contractor let us know that the bathroom wouldn’t be done in time. This was expected for a few reasons, one being that the “little bathroom renovation” turned into like…rebuilding a house. The floors were saturated in “things that had leaked” which is what I will term it because just trust me. The walls behind the shower surround were crumbling and covered in black mold. It had to be completely rebuilt. In fact, it was in such bad shape that it was almost a downstairs bathroom.

We had a great trip back, to be honest, especially considering we had Grumpy Toddler in the car. It’s amazing what two iPads, a dual screen DVD player with 12 DVDs to choose from, books, crayons, a big sister, barbies, baby dolls, and a Daddy that will sit like a pretzel just to hold a toddler’s hand will do. Whatever, it worked and I should probably be ashamed but I am not because we all got back alive and really, that’s my job as their mom.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!