Time, unwavering, continually moving forward, pushing onward, erodes a marriage.
Time, unrelenting, motioning ahead, progressing through, strengthens a marriage.
Wait. Can both statements be true? Absolutely and commitment is the force guiding time.
There are three levels of marriage commitment:
I Have To – Factors such as kids, money or family compel you to stay married.
I Ought To – External influences such as society or religion expect you to stay married.
I Want To – Personal dedication to your marriage because you want to be married.
While Missy show commitment levels 1 and 2, she is a perfect example of number three.
Missy enjoys being married and it shows in how she relates to me and the little things she does all the time. And by little, I mean things that don’t take large effort or are grand in nature. Thinks like back rubs, special meals and such are parts of this, but it’s even simpler things:
Listening to me.
Appreciating me.
Wanting to be with me.
Loving me.
There is no doubt we’ve continued our marriage for so long due to Missy’s personal commitment.
One of the recurring drivers in our marriage is hope. It’s anticipating events and occurrences as the years pass and enjoying them when they unfold. In our context, hope is a positive driver not negative.
Hope differs greatly from expectation and this is a critical point to understand. Expectation is born from effort, while hope is born from thinking, dreaming, discussing.
Missy perpetually brings hope into our lives day in and day out, but it’s never more evident than with our children.
Cassandra: Missy’s long held hope for Cassie is happiness. She hopes Cassie is happy in whatever choices she makes, life she lives and experiences she has throughout her life. Her hope was in prime form while Cassie was attending nursing school and working through a number of issues. Cassie did it and Missy’s hope was a constant companion.
Shannon: From the beginning of the consideration of having Shannon, Missy’s hope was she enjoy being part of a bridged family. Cassie was 18 when we had Shannon, so Missy hoped Shannon would experience and appreciate everything having a sibling involved. Shannon has experienced it all and is now a big sister herself.
Tommy: The last addition to our family is Tommy and his time with us has been the shortest. His stay in the NICU was the most trying with him almost dying. As I’ve written about Tommy’s lung hemorrhage:
Our son was dying.
The respiratory therapists began debating what to do among themselves. Someone suggested taking Tommy off the vent and bagging him. A few seconds went by and no one said anything until my wife urged, “YES, BAG HIM!!”
Bagging began and in a few minutes the first positive signs on the monitors. His O2 saturation increased. A few minutes after that his hear rate came up. Within 10 minutes he was stabilizing. He wasn’t healthy nor was he on the right track, but he was stabilizing.
Missy’s hope for Tommy has always been health. Whether it was his re-admittance to the hospital with RSV or his surgery for strabismus, her hope for health was paramount.
Missy’s hope for our children is spiritually guided and shared without exchange. Her hopefulness drives her parenting and ensures our children see the world through hopeful, loving eyes.
There is a point in a long marriage where truths emerge. Facts, reality. When it occurs there are two paths to take; accept the truths or ignore the truths. The truths will exist whatever the choice.
We’ve chosen to accept our truths that have emerged in the last 10 years. Embrace them and understand they support our marriage.
We are best friends.
Celebration
Having kids is what we were supposed to do.
Our marriage is a statistical anomaly.
We fart in bed.
Our singing voices are horrible, but we like each other’s.
The idea is the longer you’ve known someone in a relationship the easier it becomes to dislike them. For us, that’s never been an issue since we use our familiarity to love each other more.
I understand the meaning of the phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” With someone other than Missy as my best friend, wife and lover, it would happen. Since Missy brings such a loving perspective to our familiarity, we enrich ourselves more every day.
Missy and I bring this sense of familiarity to our marriage in various ways.
Sentences: Yes, we complete each other’s sentences, but even cooler, each other’s thoughts. The latest example is a gift Missy gave me for our 30th anniversary. It says “I Love you because …” and an area where we can write why in erasable marker.
When I opened it, Missy asked me to guess what she had written and I said, “we are best friends.”
Bingo.
This makes communication easier and more comfortable, but it also is reassuring we know each other so well.
Travel: Long road trips are the norms for our family and recently we’ve taken more than usual. Our familiarity allows us to settle into place and handle the tasks of the trip without any issues. It’s a comfortable activity we make work due to our familiarity.
Goals: Early in our marriage our goals bounced all over the place, but as the years have grown we’ve come together. Our familiarity guides us into wanting the same things. Whether it’s a simple goal as to what is important on the weekends or something more long term like vacation.
Now, look at the photo above. It represents the gift of familiarity in our marriage as it shows Missy sleeping on a weekend after spending an hour reading with Shannon in our backyard on a beautiful spring day. A marriage without a certain familiarity would have rushed her back into the race, pushing her to get going on a weekend.
Familiarity is comfort, it’s knowing, it’s the sense of well being because your life partner is in sync with you.
Missy and my friendship existed before we were married and will continue forever. I know this because friendship is rooted in wanting to spend time with a person and regardless of alive or dead, there is no one I’d rather spend time with.
When I think about the friendship Missy and I share, three things come to the forefront. Vulnerability, honesty and time.
Kidneys: Medical issues make everyone feel vulnerable, especially if follow-up care is required. I’ve suffered kidney stones four times in my life and it isn’t a good experience. Kidney stones are the worst pain a human being can endure, which I am sure is subjective, but to me they are the most painful.
The pain is crushing reducing me to a simple raw emotional goo. All I want is the pain to stop and I will do anything to make that happen. It is at that point I am my most vulnerable and when my best friend Missy takes over.
She sits with me, checks on me, lets me work through the pain trying to distract from it. When I finally succumb and put my manhood aside, she drives me to the hospital, advocates for me and gently touches me to move my focus. My vulnerability shuffles away as I know my best friend is there taking care of me.
Honesty: Many times during our marriage I’ve had some really solid, stupendous ideas. Other times I’ve had some really poor, stupid ideas. It’s when I trot out these stupid ideas Missy is there with the honesty only a best friend can offer. There are times when she isn’t there to catch me and she is just as honest.
The winter storm was bone chilling, icy and snowy. The rest of the family is sleeping and I had to get to work quickly, so I thought the best idea would be to dump hot water on the car windows and follow up with a hoe to remove the snow and ice. It worked great! The ice and snow came off with simple sweeps of the hoe.
Pop.
The back window pops and glass is everywhere. When I tell Missy what happens she is honest and direct about what an idiot I am for thinking this was a good idea. Then we laugh.
Time: How do you know you have a best friend in your spouse? There is no one else you want to spend your time with.
Missy and I have our alone time, but most of the time we’re hanging out doing something around the house, yard or with the kids. Seriously, even though it makes more sense to do errands separately, we’ll do them together because we enjoy each other’s company.
We’ve worked hard at doing this learning early in our marriage there is no substitute for spending time together.
Many times when I’ve gone out of town for business, Missy joins me and we end up spending time we would have otherwise lost. One of our favorite business trips was to Wisconsin. My meetings last Thursday and Friday, so we stayed Saturday and Sunday to have for ourselves. We rented bikes, went to the farmer’s market and just hung out. Time we were blessed to spend with each other.
Our marriage is wonderful, but it is our friendship keeping it alive. Without my best friend, Missy, life would be a lonely series of unfulfilled dreams and barren experiences.
The one thing you need to understand about being married this long is things can get static, automatic. Day in, day out, the sameness of everything creeps into your life. You settle in and stay. Passion forces you out of your settling and into a more chaotic pace, which keeps the marriage fueled and moving forward.
Missy brings a great deal of passion to our marriage through her trying new things and exploring interesting ideas. Rarely do we sit still and grow moss, we’re always rolling.
Flipping: Flipping is when you buy something and turn around and sell it with the goal of making a profit. Missy is really into the idea of flipping and is constantly looking for deals.
She came across a website that does government auctions and realized she could buy professionally made, sturdy wood pallets cheap from the state department of transportation. Putting the bid in, we waited, excitedly for the end. It came and we won!
Missy had great ideas on how to resell them or make things out of them and profit. Unfortunately, since we bought the best pallets you cannot make anything out of them due to the chemicals used to treat the wood. Also, there is no market for used pallets.
Still, the passion for going after a deal and making it happen was exciting!
We’ve managed to give some away to family and used some ourselves, but we still have a huge inventory. Contact me and we’ll make a deal.
Biking: I was the first to get into road biking, but Missy quickly joined. Our anniversary is in February and we decided to take a trip to Springfield, Illinois to celebrate. Missy suggested we bring the bikes since biking was becoming our thing.
We parked in the historical district of Springfield, unpacked the bikes and started riding. It was cold. Really cold. So cold the snot froze in my nose. Of course, we were prepared for the cold. Tshirts, sweatpants and hoodies. Oh, yeah!
Hastily, we found a free museum tour. Locked the bikes, went inside and stayed warm for the next hour.
Sometimes we are not smart people, but the passion for riding got us into an adventure!
This was the only photo we got of the bike ride since it was so cold.
Sewing: Missy’s Dad taught her how to sew when we first married. I could stop right there and that would be cool enough.
Through the years Missy’s made everything for us from tshirts to ties to shorts. Within the last 10 years, though, she’s turned this into a passion with the addition of an embroidery machine! Not only does she make birthday shirts for our younger kids, but sells her handiwork all over!
When people have questions about the best way to do something or need ideas, Missy is there to help. When she engages with a person on helping them with what they need, it brings a spark into her day and into our marriage.
The boy on his birthday!
Missy’s passion has fueled our marriage through the times when it seemed natural to drop anchor and stand still. We journeyed into unchartered waters and our marriage benefited greatly from the wonderment we’ve enjoyed.
After we were married our first son was born. While he was recovering from premature birth in the NICU, he died suddenly. The doctors didn’t have a definitive cause for his rapid deterioration or the exact circumstance as to why he died.
We were 18 and 17. Newly married to the point we were still learning how to live together and this happened.
My path with God split when my first son died. I had grown up catholic, attended a catholic high school and thought I understood my faith, I quickly learned I didn’t. Through the years I have developed a unique relationship with God, but I have never truly understood nor forgiven the death of my first son.
Missy always had strong faith, never wavered and has continued her religious education. I avoid discussing the intricacies of her relationship with God as I consider it highly personal and have a tendency to debate, which seems like attacking. What I do know is Missy has a special understanding of seeing God in the people and situations around her.
Until I began thinking about this special understanding, I was unaware it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It allows a person to see things as God sees them and to treat others as God would treat them.
She works hard at her understanding it lends a perspective I can sometimes quickly dismiss. For instance, Shannon’s had an issue with a friend at school. My first inclination was to tell Shannon to have nothing to do with this kid and move on. Missy’s first inclination was to try to understand how Shannon can be nicer and more empathetic with the friend. You know, like Jesus would.
Missy isn’t a saint and her reactions sometimes veer away from the understanding she has gained, but many times in our marriage it has shown us a better, more loving way of handling things.
Even though she might not recognize it, her gift of understanding drives her to make the sacrifices needed to ensure our children can benefit from the gifts of the holy spirit. It’s a strain for us to send our children to catholic schools, but Missy’s understanding knows they will be better people with a strong faith foundation.
30 years of marriage presents times when you’re going to do something wrong to your partner. Whether it’s purposeful or inadvertent, the wrong has to be dealt with. There are apologies from the offender, but there has to be true forgiveness from the offended. It took us a long time to understand this and not hold grudges.
There are a couple of times where Missy has offered true forgiveness when I’ve wronged her and it meant a great deal in keeping our marriage healthy.
Biking ahead: Biking came late to our marriage, but when it arrived it came full force. We jumped into the activity and even incorporated biking into our trips out of town.
I took to it fervently. I rode every weekend, sometimes during lunch at work. Missy was an every other weekend rider, but was still as excited to get on the trails.
Her excitement sometimes lead us into the unknown, literally.
Yes, that is a forest.
The problem was my inability to ride with Missy instead of racing her. I’d push the pace, race ahead, wait and repeat. Quickly, I knew something was wrong with this and Missy told me so.
See, I wasn’t just being a putz, I was making Missy feel bad about doing something she liked.
When she explained this to me I apologized and she forgave me. Our biking outings are funner and more enjoyable now that we’ve moved on.
Exposing the personal: Even after 30 years of marriage there are still things we’re learning about each other. The latest was at the end of our 29th year. 🙂
As new year passed, we were in Cincinnati to support my mother during a medical procedure. The night before we headed home we were in our hotel room and I was doing what I always do; take photos and videos. For years I’ve done this and even put together monthly clips of slices of our daily lives. This is the one from January:
Notice the beginning of the video and the deletion of six days of video. This was a direct result of my videoing something in our hotel room I shouldn’t have. When I videoed it Missy was shocked and upset, but more importantly, hurt. I’ll be honest, I had no idea videoing when I did would solicit this reaction.
See, in the 29 years we’d been married I’d never paid attention to this specific thing and was ignorant of it’s importance.
In my haste to make things right with Missy, I deleted the videos, but mistakenly deleted everything from the first of the year through the sixth.
Ouch.
Missy couldn’t help but laugh at what happened even though I was struck with anger and fear from losing the photos and videos. I apologized to her, her to me and we forgave each other.
Even after 30 years we still have to remember the simple act of apologizing isn’t made whole unless someone forgives.
To say Missy is one of the kinder souls you’ll ever meet is an understatement. Her kindness runs deep and is fueled by the belief helping others makes you a better person. She’s like this naturally.
Luckily for me, the kindness has rubbed off on me. I wasn’t an unkind person, but watching Missy’s kindness in action through the years has made me kinder.
In the last 10 years there are any number of kind things Missy has done, but the following give a taste of the variety of kindness.
Mom Help: My mother in law is a wonderful person who lives alone. Since we live in the same city there are times she needs help with groceries, medicine or any other items. Missy is always at the ready to run the errands, do the job or make the necessary to effort to do what is needed. Her kindness really shows when she does all this while knowing there are other pressing things in her life.
Parking Stranger: While on vacation in Texas in 2015, we were sightseeing in downtown Galveston when Missy noticed someone having an issue parallel parking. The lady looked exasperated as she tried multiple times to park properly. Missy went over and asked the lady if she wanted some help parking and before you knew it, Missy was in the car parking it for the lady.
Dropping for the Move: Last year our oldest daughter moved out of the house and to a city 3 hours away. As moving day came, it was obvious things weren’t coming together as they should. When moving day came, I had to load the truck through the night. 😃
Missy helped, but knowing our daughter was going to be in a new city by herself and without help, Missy gathered our two other kids and hit the road! She spent the next two days with my daughter helping her unpack, clean the new apartment and move in.
Kindness is just what makes Missy, Missy. You cannot have Missy without kindness of love, giving and spirit.
We’ve been married 10,958 days. During this time we’ve had the typical ups and downs most married couples have with a few really crappy times. Laughter is the lubricant of our marriage to get us through the day in and day out, especially the crappy ones.
A few examples of laughter allowing our marriage to flow easier include:
Target on drugs: Shortly after our second daughter was born and staying in the NICU, Missy was discharged from the hospital. She was still taking effective narcotic pain medication for recovery from the C-section. She needed some supplies for home, so we stopped at Target. Not wanting to walk, she opted to use a powered scooter to get around the store. Seemed like a good idea until she wedged herself between clothing displays.
She couldn’t move forward, backward or escape. Feeling no pain, talking about whatever she wanted, she worked to free herself while we laughed so hard. Here we are with a new baby in the hospital thinking it’d be a great idea to go shopping with her on narcotics.
Tommy confirmation: They were 44 and 43 with a 4 year old in tow sitting outside in an open courtyard. The hospital did a fine job with the courtyard. Flowing water, gorgeous fountains, comfortable benches. The day was top ten. Not too hot, not chilly, just right. The 4 year old running around and Mom and Dad cannot quit laughing, for they just found out they were pregnant with kid number 4.
During the appointment with the OB/GYN the Dad was looking for any clarification the news couldn’t be true. When he asked, “Are you sure the pregnancy stick tests are accurate?” The doctor laughed uproariously. “Yes, they are always accurate. If anything, there is a chance of a false negative, but never a false positive.”
They sat there in the courtyard uncontrollably laughing retelling the OB/GYN’s response. Part out of fear, part absurdity, but mostly the shared sense of love and timing.
Cutting down tree: I am not a handyman. Growing up, my family never owned their own home. Missy’s did, so she’s taken the lead on ensuring house maintenance is finished. In the last few years, I’ve gotten actively involved, which leads to much laughter.
Last weekend we decided to remove a tree branch. Dutifully, I pull out the ladder, a new tree saw and get my goggles on. Missy and I work through the plan of attack and agree on doing it.
IT WORKED GREAT!
Emboldened by our deftness of tree removal, we set our sights on a bigger, weightier branch running higher into the trees. It mingled through the wires running from pole to pole, but we again discussed our plan of action and went for it. The cutting process went great!
Quickly, we realized it was a bad idea.
“We’re idiots,” I exclaim.
“The internet better not go down,” she yells.
Yep, the branch we cut was wedged between the line bringing the internet into our house. We looked up, looked at each other and just laughed.
For the record, after about an hour of work we removed the branch hanging among the wires without losing the internet or cutting off cable for the neighborhood.
Laughter is a constant in our marriage and allows to not take everything so seriously. When you’ve been what we’ve been through, you know sometimes you just have to laugh.
