First Comes Marraige Then Comes Love

Or Falling in Love and Other Fairy Tales


I love looking at my wedding pictures. There we are, young and tan. Jeff with his curly blonde locks and me with my "I just had my wisdom teeth removed for insurance purposes and have been on liquids for a week" diet. We stare at me out of those glossy black and whites with gooey lovestruck innocence. And I want to say to us, "Just wait, you have no idea what you are in for!"
I have a confession to make. You may find this shocking, but I didn't love Jeff when I married him. Of course I thought I did. But as I look back over almost 9 years of marriage (almost three times as long as I knew him when we said I do) and I think about how our love has been tested over that time. I think about when he was working nights and in seminary, I think about when I was pregnant, sick, hormonal and working in a call center as a bill collector. I think about when Caleb was a year old and I was pregnant with Isaac, and babysitting an 18 month old ( I remember throwing up in the kitchen sink with a toddler clinging to each leg) while Jeff worked two jobs. And more than that I think about the times when we were just plain unlovable. Times when we have been selfish, ungrateful and uncaring. Times when I have been that quarrelsome wife that probably made Jeff wish he was in the corner of the rooftop and he has lived with me with a little less than understanding. And before you get thoroughly depressed and stop reading this, I'll get to the good part! Through all these times we loved. We loved when we didn't feel loving, when we didn't feel lovable. We stayed and we worked and we made it through each trial and we came out each time more sure of our love and more secure knowing that nothing could shake it, even ourselves. Which is what brings me to think that what we felt for each other on our wedding day pales in comparison to what we have now. So much so that it doesn't even seem right to put it in the same category.