Reflecting on My First Year of Marriage

Sometimes whispered conversations in the dark are the best conversations.

It was close to 11pm and we had finally turned in for the night. An angry outburst from me earlier in the day had lead to a tense hour in the grocery store, and to making my first stop at the ABC store since I turned 21 just over a week ago.

The room was so dark I couldn't tell my hand from the ceiling and the pressure of my actions over the last two weeks was finally eased slightly by the copious amounts of rum I'd had to drink.

I laid on my back, staring up into the blackness.

"Do you still love me?" I whispered.

There was a moment of silence and I began to feel my heart breaking. For the past two weeks I had very literally felt my marriage crumbling around me, knowing that I stood in the center of the crack and had no idea how to make it right.

"Yes," he said finally. And then, "Do you still love me?"

I had to think about it for a minute. My answer was not immediate like it once was. But I was not the same person that I was a year ago when we got married, or the year before that when we had just met. I know now that I wasn't ready to be married last year, and neither was Brian. But I don't think our age had anything to do with it. Another twenty years or so could've passed before we got married, whether to each other or to someone else, and I still think it would've been the same.


We had already lived together before we got married. I thought that's what marriage was like, and we had been okay so far, so might as well make it official. To a certain extent, I was right. But I wasn't prepared to the sameness of it all.

I wasn't prepared for the dirty dishes in the sink night after night. I wasn't prepared for the pile of socks next to the bed. I wasn't prepared for headaches and bills and don't touch my feet that only comes with the knowledge that you are forever bonded to this one person for the rest of your life. I wasn't prepared for the heartache of losing pregnancies, for the renewed hope and repeated failure that comes month after month of doing everything right and having my body fail me. I wasn't prepared for coming home from work, from school, knowing how utterly exhausted my body was and walking into a disaster of a house that I didn't have the energy for. I wasn't prepared to go to bed every other night without my husband next to me. I wasn't prepared to feel so lonely.

But my answer was the same as it has been all this time. "Yes," I said. "I love you."

"Are you sure?" His voice cracked somewhat, and I knew that I had hurt him. "Because sometimes I don't think you do."

Over the past few weeks, I felt like evil had taken over my body and was making me say things that I possibly didn't mean, like I couldn't control what what coming from my mouth. I would see Brian's reaction, see his hurting face again and again, and yet, I was helpless to stop myself. I would wake up depressed, defeated, wanting to lay on the couch and do nothing, not even change clothes or eat. I went days without eating something substantial, reverting to my old habits of dealing with stress by avoiding food. I functioned for school and my internship, and I had no energy left for my marriage.

Yet despite all of it, I knew I was with Brian for a reason. Before he put that ring on my finger just under a year ago, I promised to love him through better and worse. This is one of the worst times, and I still love him. I have to figure out how to deal with the issues that I feel, and I have to figure out how to be the wife that God and Brian want me to be, to be the wife that I expect of myself.

"Yes," I answered. "I'm sure."

I thought about how to explain myself to him. I come from brokenness, from fights and cursing, from sipping alcohol to numb the ache. I don't come from prayer, from smiles and encouragement. I come from smacks and holes in the walls. I come from drugs, from meaningless sex, from a pattern of failure again and again. It wasn't that I didn't love Brian. It was that I felt I could never match up to what he expected because I didn't know how.

"I just need you to be patient with me," I said. "I'm just trying to figure this all out as I go along." Under the covers, I felt Brain's hand reach out and grasp my fingers. Fatigue kept us from being able to get a good grip, but I squeezed his fingers as best I could in response.

It wasn't the best grip, but he knew I was there. And I knew he was there for me despite my flaws.

And sometimes that's all that really matters.