Marriage is work...don't kids yourself otherwise.

I am going to blow it for all you romantics. There is no happily ever after. There is no magic love that stays there forever, passionate, romantic, intense....It isn't a spell that comes over us and makes us giddy with laughter every day. Birds don't chirp on our windowsills as we sit brushing our shiny golden hair each day. It isn't like that.

Marriage is work. We work at it every single day. If you are not willing to work, don't get married. Some days, it is your day to be the strength. You are the one that stays calm and pulls it all together. Some days, you may be the workhorse...plugging along, going through the motions to keep everything in place. Some days you are the lazy one...floating through your day with ease. Some days are romantic, with a note in your lunch from your special someone. Some days, you are lucky if they even notice the color of your shirt, much less that you took extra care to put on your lipgloss.

What is romance anyway? When we first married, the flowers, the poems he used to write, stopping by my work for a kiss....it was so new and exciting. Every time we were intimate, I just fell more in love with him. Now, six years later, instead of five small children in our blended family, we are three teens, one preteen and an 8 year old. Big difference. Romantic to me now is rubbing my feet as I doze off watching the St. Louis Cardinals on TV. Romantic to me now is getting up and seeing that when he packed his lunch this morning, he made one for me too! Romantic for me is when I walk in the room and he looks up and says, "Did you do something with your hair?" and I walk away chuckling because the "different" thing....I brushed it :)

Marriage is a job. Some days it is easier than other and some days, you want to quit. I have a niece who is 19 and pregnant. She said to me, "I think the best thing we can do for the baby is get married." I said,, "I think the best thing you can do is not get married, finish your education and, if in two years, you are still together and "in love", get married then and include your baby in the ceremony." What I left out was the obvious fact that her baby's daddy is a 18 year old high school dropout who has had more jobs in the last year than I have had in my 15 year work history and the odds he will even still be AROUND in two years, well, let's just say that$100Million lottery has better odds!

Because....a guy who can't make his job at the pizzaria last more than a month because it was "too hard"....marriage is harder.

I don't mean this as a downer post, because, when you put in the work, it is wonderful. My husband is my best friend. He is my greatest ally. He is my biggest cheerleader. He is the person who can make me smile with a word and a person who can still make my toes tingle with a kiss. It is worth the work you put in...well worth it.