Marriage Is Hard Work.

It’s Tuesday, and I just want to get right to it. Marriage is very hard work.

I’m not afraid of a little hard work. I planted a flower bed all by myself recently without gardening gloves because I couldn’t find them. They were packed away in a box somewhere, and I considered what it would do to my hands and decided I was fine with it. I planted my zinnias. So that is my very middle-class American example of how I can roll up my sleeves and really “get after it” as my Alabama-born Daddy would say. This has served me well in my current job of butt wiping and house keeping. I can’t change a tire, but I can plant a flower without gardening gloves. Watch. Out.

Unfortunately, all of my gumption tends to get sucked up, quite literally, in the vacuum. I don’t have a ton of energy left over after doing all the stuff I do in a day, and by the time Robbie gets home I can barely mutter a hello. This bothers me because I love my husband and I would prefer to greet him with a hot meal and a lively, not muttered, hello.

I dislike the feeling of not putting myself 100% into everything that I care about even though I realize that it is not possible to be awesome at everything all at the same time. I seem to suffer not from a perfectionist problem, but a want-to-do-it-all-and-rock-it problem. I have read self-help books aplenty and I just can’t help the fact that I like to get after almost everything in life. I will never accept that I can’t be an awesome mom and and awesome wife in the same day.

Maybe I just need to find the perfect combination of stimulants.

Now, I have let plenty of things slide, but not without them keeping me awake at night. I have literally laid in my bed thinking about how dirty the inside of my van is, which is a nice compliment to my husband, who wouldn’t care or notice if there were McDonald’s bags piled a mile high.

Other things that have kept me up at night:

1. The knowledge that I need our green couches and a few rugs professionally cleaned.

2. The knowledge that I have an insane amount of cellulite.

3. The knowledge of the big blue veins on the backs of my knees.

4. Wondering where the gnats are coming from.

5. Wondering if Robbie ignored me because he was tired, or because of the veins on the backs of my knees?

6. Deciding it was definitely the veins, or maybe that I never make him food when he gets home which is why he always eats cold cereal.

7. Worry over Robbie’s health and diet.

8. Worry that I will die alone, with blue legs.

***

I guarantee you, the entire above list will be news to my husband when he reads this — which is a whole other post in itself. Men simply have no idea what we go through.

So, to circle back to what I was saying, my vacuum and my ferret-like children get the majority of my energy during the day. I do not enjoy being too exhausted to make Robbie a sandwich or think of interesting things to say to him when he gets home at 8:30 at night. Then I start down a spiral of feeling like we are doomed.

(And all the feminists mutter angrily, “Why can’t he make his own damn sandwich?!” Well … he CAN. I would just like to do it.)

There he is.

He is in a similar predicament of tiredness from shouldering the burden of providing for his family. When it comes down to it we are just two exhausted people who love each other but we are just too tired to think of anything to say or do to demonstrate it, so we sit on the couch and space out in tandem and I drink like there is no tomorrow because of the shell-shock I feel when my day is done.

Robbie is exempt from the shell-shock except on days when he is home. At the beginning of dinner last Sunday night, before the blessing had even been said, Asher fell head first out of his chair and busted his nose … which we didn’t realize until blood was running down his face and threatened to drip onto his plate of quinoa and fish. I kind of half-heartedly wiped at it with my napkin and said, “So … this is happening,” as I silently counted the hours until I could pour myself a glass of wine.

Having a serious talk.

While the rational side of me understands that this is just how it is right now, and not for the rest of my life, the irrational side gets really upset at my husband for not bringing home flowers or showering me with the adoration I rightly deserve, or PERKING UP AND BEING FUN SO I WILL PERK UP AND BE FUN. Nevermind that I don’t shower him with adoration like I should, or bring him gifts or be fun all the time or even ask him intelligent questions. I am just as guilty of putting him on the back burner, it’s just less acceptable to me because I am the Queen. I’m sure you understand.

All parents of young children go through this season of utter exhaustion, where everything is an ordeal that leaves you too tired to conversate with the adult sitting next to you by the end of the day. Or you find yourself in a situation that would normally be enjoyable, like a festival, but you can’t enjoy it, really, because you’re too busy keeping track of all of your children. Then you run into someone you know and you can’t hold a normal conversation because the stress of getting everyone dressed to attend said festival melted your brain.

Everything in your life gets blurred over and fuzzy from lack of rest and mental focus. Robbie and I would have to think hard to remember the last time we went on a date. We can’t remember to call the insurance company. We can’t remember what day it is or what we were talking about before we were interrupted. We can’t remember any damn thing. Sometimes I wonder if we will even remember this period of our lives.

I’m leaning towards no.

So this is why people say that kids are hard on a marriage, because they are. Just when you think you’re working as hard as you possibly can to keep all of these different people happy and healthy and alive, along with keeping food in the house and the bathrooms clean, you turn around and realize that you look like a hot mess and you have totally forgotten about your husband, but it’s okay because he’s forgotten about you too. But then you get mad at him about it, because that is what Queens do.

Marriage. Is. Work.

But, just like everything else we toil over, it is worth what we pour into it. I have read that and heard it a thousand times over, but when I’m actually experiencing it … it’s not easy to push through. But so far, we keep pushing through and arriving victoriously on the other side of whatever mountain stood in our way. And even though we are TIRED, and he doesn’t take care of himself, and I worry too much, and I’m hormonally imbalanced, at the end of the day we perfectly imperfectly love the hell out of each other. I don’t know why we work so well, but I am so glad that we do.

I love that man. Sometimes that love is enough, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes, what marriage is made of isn’t just love, it’s dirt and sweat and forgiveness. Thank God I married someone who understands that, even though he is terrible at verbalizing it.

Also, as it turns out, we’ve been herding cats since the beginning of our relationship. We are experts at this. Here’s proof from our first foray into herding.