Marriage is Beautiful, Painful and Real

It seems that my blog post for Catholic Stand may have given a few people the idea that I don’t think marriage is beautiful and that mine is “sad” and a chore for me. So, let me clear up a few things.

Anyone who thinks that I don’t love my husband and realize that marriage is beautiful has obviously not read my blog much. There are examples here, here and here, that show how beautiful my marriage really is. It is beautiful because it is real. There are three people in this marriage: me, my husband and Jesus.

My husband and I have struggles, not because we sometimes get on each other’s nerves or don’t like each other, but because we are sinners. I am not going to blast my husband’s faults on the world-wide web, as he says, but I will tell you that I am the most selfish person to ever live. My husband deserves better than a selfish wife. He really does.

My husband is a wonderful man. The kind of man who hates confrontation and who would do anything to avoid it. If I wanted to, I could run all over him, take advantage of him and treat him like a door mat. And I’ve done all those things, because I am selfish.

The crazy thing about becoming Catholic and resolving to let God make me a saint is that being a selfish wife is no longer an option for me. And that causes conflict. If becoming a saintly wife doesn’t cause conflict in your life, then you are not doing it right. It is that simple. Not one single saint has lived a conflict, struggle free life. NOT ONE. If there is one, please tell me who it was.

My struggles might not be the same as yours and yours might not be the same as mine, but for anyone to mock the struggles of others is rude.

It is hard for me to love others more than I love myself. My whole life has been one big ball of “me, me, me, me, ME!”. I’m happy for people who have not lived the life that I have, but for most of my life I have walked around this world looking for the life that I felt I deserved and never once living the life that GOD gave me. From the moment I would wake up in the morning it was about me getting to work so I could make money, so I could go out, so I could find a man to love and go home with, so I could feel good, so I could be happy, so I could take care of my kids. The I is lord of the addict’s life. I was addicted to “happiness”.  I had to do whatever it took to get my happy fix and screw everyone else. Replacing that I with Jesus, is not easy for me.

Anyone who thinks that being married is supposed to be easy needs to look a little harder at Jesus hanging on a Cross. That is LOVE and it’s not without pain, struggle, falling down, and tears. It IS beautiful, and yet messy. And guess what? It’s not a fairy tale. It is reality, just.like.marriage.

It isn’t “sad” that my marriage has had struggles. St. Paul says that where sin abounds, Grace abounds all the more. (Romans 5:20) So, in a weird way, it is by struggling in marriage because of the struggles with sin, that it is filled with Grace.

So, don’t be sad for me, I need that Grace.