Maybe Your Marriage is a Jackpot
It’s our 22nd wedding anniversary this week, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve been able to build with my husband of the last couple+ decades. I thought I’d share some thoughts…
Imagine winning the lottery, a record breaking jackpot, and not knowing for years.
So, all my friends are in town this week, and we went around and said the thing we’re proud of the most. “My marriage, James.” I said. Easy.
The truth is, we had a pretty bland beginning. A good decade and a half of going through the motions. One of the gifts of my own personal undoing, however, about 10 years ago, was that it forced us to face our disconnection. It forced us to ask what we really wanted. It forced us to face all the good reasons we thought we had for why the other just wasn’t meeting our needs. And so we did. And it was so difficult, but really and truly, the love each of us have always wanted was waiting on the other side, and there’s nothing in my life I’m more proud of.
I’m proud that whatever baby girl wisdom I leaned into at 20 years old said “him.” I’m proud that when we were too emotionally immature to know how to connect, for years and years, and even still, we didn’t blow up our lives. I’m proud that we dared to believe that movie romance is possible and worth figuring out, when we felt so far away from each other. I’m proud of how we navigated babies, postpartum, faith deconstruction and reconstruction. 5 moves, 4 cities. I’m proud of myself for listening to the small voice inside among loud shouting voices that told me not to believe that our disconnection was a sign of anything other that fear.
But mostly, I’m so incredibly proud of who this man is. He has treated me like a treasure, even in his lows. He has worked so hard for our family. He has followed me down all the rabbit trails of ideas and books and podcasts and dreams. He has an innate peace, a soft knowing that everything will be okay, and when I’ve been wild-eyed with doubt and suspicion and fear about life, and us and love itself, he didn’t press, he just sat with me, available but not rushing.
I am a 4 on the enneagram, and he is a 9. Which means (if you’re into the enneagram), I am a passionate and emotional Creative, looking for identity constantly, and he is a steadfast and satisfied man. Nothing has ever made me more crazy, and nothing could have healed me on a deeper level.
I saw a young couple get married this week. 22 years ago, James and I were those kids, no idea what we were stepping into. My friend sitting next to me at the wedding sighed and said, “I hope my kids get married young someday.” I was surprised, I haven’t heard that from other mom friends. We need to be smart, right? Grow up a little! Figure out who you are first….right? She said, “I just hope my kids find someone they can grow up with.”
Oh, yes. I can’t deny it’s been the gift of my life.
(And available to you at any age, if that’s your desire!)
My young clients tell me how confusing marriage is. “How can you know? Why does this hurt?” “What happens when I want them and then I suddenly feel icked out, turned off?” “Does doubt mean don’t?”
No, loves, it means you might not know how to let yourself be loved in all your imperfection, by an imperfect person. It also means you might not know how to fully face the risk of losing that love when you leave the earth, once you let it in.
But if you can lean in, and risk the vulnerability of it all, you might find that you won the lottery.
A record breaking jackpot.
— Court