How We Did Married Life

If you’ve done the math, you figured out by now that we are celebrating our 25^th anniversary this week. Hence the blogging on dating & marriage. That, and the fact that we just had a son get married. Is it any wonder “Love & Marriage, love & marriage, they go together like a horse & carriage…” are on my mind?

But before I finish our story, I want to thank you, my readers, for your kind comments. Every time I get ready to hit the “Publish” key for a post of a personal nature, I waffle. Why am I doing this? Why am I throwing out details of our personal life for everyone to read? It’s boring. Does anyone even care? I probably just wasted a bunch of time writing this because only a handful of people will read it! Or worse yet, someone might read it, misunderstand what I’m trying to say and get offended.  It’s nice to know people do actually read my stuff. And find the humor in the everyday, boring stuff of our lives. It gives me courage to keep writing. I am most definitely not a fiction writer; the only thing I know how to write is real stuff that happens to us. I used to think it’s not okay to talk about the negative experiences in our lives. But if I’ve learned anything in 45 years, it is that I’m not helping anyone when I present an “I’ve got my act together” façade. I’m only encouraging others on their journey when I’m real about where I am and what I’m going through. When I am honest, it makes the lump of stuff swept under the carpet smaller, and also invites you to say “Really? You, too? I thought I was the only one.” So there you have it.  If that’s not your style, then this isn’t the blog for you.

Ok, back to the tidbits of how we did married life for the past 25 years.  

      

“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It’s loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.” –Anne Landers

It’s grace and mercy that bind two flawed people together till death. It’s not always easy –there are hard days and years when you don’t know if you’re going to make it through. But there are also those times when he walks through the door and you catch your breath at how handsome he still is or you can share a look across a crowded room and know you are thinking the same thing, and you know without a shadow of a doubt there is no one else you’d rather have by your side as you grow old. There’s nothing fancy about a good solid marriage –just 2 people deeply committed to the same thing. That’s what we’ve figured out so far.

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A story we like to tell from our honeymoon is I am a seafood lover, but R never ate seafood (other than the occasional fish from the farm pond) until he started dating me. So in Mexico he took me to a seafood restaurant and ordered a lobster & chicken entrée for himself. I recall it was after dark and we dined on a dock-type balcony over the water; very romantic. Except by the time we left the restaurant, R wasn’t feeling so good. He actually induced vomiting into the bushes beside the road. Not romantic. Blissfully ignorant of what was really happening, we walked back to our hotel and turned in for the night. Except he had this vague “I don’t feel quite right” feeling and wasn’t able to sleep. Somewhere along about the middle of the night, he woke me. He was covered in hives! Enough to make a honey bee insanely happy. And wanting to know what to do.

Ok, stop right there. R was raised by a mother who fluttered about with chicken soup, tea, herbs, and all manner of home remedies when he was sick. My mother was the ‘take 2 aspirin & call me in the morning’ variety; sleeping it off will cure a lot of ills. We were in a mixed marriage and had no idea! We had been together for 15 months. You would think this would’ve come up at some point. No one covered this in premarital counseling. How was I supposed to know he expected to be fluttered over in sickness? I prefer to be left alone to sleep it off when I don’t feel good, so practicing the golden rule, I advised him to soak in the tub, then calmly went back to sleep. Yes, I did. He could’ve died, and I would’ve slept through it! What kind of horrible wife does this?!

Incidentally, the first time I got sick, he –lacking fluttering skills- called his mother who came to flutter over me. Bless her. But I wanted to be left alone to sleep and was less than appreciative. (Spare me the lecture- neither method is superior, they are simply different.) It was a learning curve, but eventually we learned the golden rule does not apply to ‘in sickness and in health’ in our case.

What we now know is that R is seriously allergic to shellfish. Surely the Lord has an extra guardian angel for those of us who are stupid. In spite of my rudimentary medical knowledge, I did not realize my poor husband was going into anaphylactic shock. What saved his life is likely the fact that he purged his system before the lobster turned fatal. We were in a foreign country and couldn’t speak the language; we would’ve been in so much trouble if he would’ve advanced to compromised airway. At the hotel, the staff could speak English –some better than others, but anywhere outside hotel zone we would’ve needed an interpreter since we ‘no comprehendo’ Spanish. Fortunately, he recovered. It took another encounter with shellfish before we caught on the Cancun incident was not an isolated case of bad meat. He’s had a few accidental exposures since and each time he reacts a bit more, to the point it’s scary. He really should carry an epi pen. And we generally don’t risk eating at Red Lobster (my former favorite restaurant) anymore. 

Seriously, when you are young, in love, and say those vows before all your family & friends, you think the “in sickness and in health” part is thrown in there because it’s part of the ritual. Not that it actually means you are literally taking over this person’s health care. Like Obama Care, but hopefully more efficient and less wasteful. You don’t really think the sickness part will happen to you. I highly recommend you find out how your better half expects to be nursed back to health before the wedding. Just to be on the safe side.    

Speaking of health, doesn’t it feel just a little unfair that the pinnacle of our physical fitness usually coincides with the time when we are not married and don’t really have the option to parade our best features? Wouldn’t it be better if we could start off wrinkled and with muffin tops so we could be sure we’re choosing our life partner for their sparkling personality? Then the reward for staying married could be your body gets better –more toned- with each passing year. But it doesn’t work that way. For most of us, our bodies will never look as good as they did when we walked down the aisle. Age, slowing metabolism & doughnuts are not our friends. Ironically, that is the beauty of marriage. With hair turning grey and middle age spreading across the mid-section, we know we are growing old together and I wouldn’t trade him for all the buff young bucks in the world.  

            

So, back to the thing about what kind of horrible wife could have slept through her new husband’s suffering… Well, now that you mention it, one who is sleep deprived. I really did not get much sleep on our honeymoon. Or the first month. No, it’s not what you think. I came into the marriage a very light sleeper indeed, due to sleeping alone all my life. Just the sound of someone breathing next to me kept me awake! All those declarations of love “I love you so much I would do anything for you” does not include to stop breathing so you can sleep. It was a tough habit to break, but I eventually learned to sleep through many things, from rumbling diesel trucks to snoring. 

We arrived home from our honeymoon ready to settle into our own little house, unpack our wedding gifts, and begin ‘real’ life -as grown-up married people. We didn’t quite know what that looked like, but we were eager to fake it. We didn’t have much money, and houses tend to cost money and come with requirements like insurance, property tax and mortgages. But it was totally worth it because it was the house of my dreams. Our safe haven from storms. A place we could love, laugh, cry, fight, make up, dream, and seek God’s will for our lives.

In the newlywed days, everything is so new. You’re on your best behavior. Except when you’re not. An argument feels like the end of the world. At least to some of us. Who can’t eat or sleep until it’s resolved. For R & I, that was another difference we had to blend. One of us wanted to apologize right away and get it taken care of. The other one of us is hard core about not apologizing until we mean it. There may have been an argument once that ended with “stop saying you are sorry just to get me to say sorry. I can’t say it until I feel it. Right now I’m too mad to feel sorry. Give me some time.” We each still do it our own way, but we understand each other’s style.

Best behavior for me included getting up early to eat breakfast and/or pack him a lunch, send him off to work like a proper wife should. But another one of my special talents is that when I am up for the day I am up. I don’t do naps [with the exception of Sunday afternoons]. So this system meant I was up at the ungodly hour known as the crack of dawn, with a long day at home alone with virtually nothing to do. A house does not get very dirty when there are only 2 people in it. There is not a lot of social life when you are new to a community and don’t know anyone. In this strange Narnia I had moved to it was strongly believed a woman’s place is in the home and the only acceptable jobs for married ladies –in that era- was to either clean houses for rich doctors, babysit, or to teach school. You can’t pay me enough to clean someone else’s dirt, I’m not good with children, and a schoolteacher I doth not make, so my only option was to be a keeper at home. With very little to ‘keep’. Wag your finger at me if you will, but before long I abandoned all pretenses of being a proper wife and stayed in bed while the man of the house went off to win the bread. If my mother told me once when I was little, she told me a thousand times “Don’t get out of bed until you can be cheerful” so I don’t.  

All the financial sense I have comes from my parents. Growing up there were nights we could barely sleep from the sound of pinched pennies screaming. J But they taught me a lot of good management skills that helped get us where we are today. We all know finances can be a dicey proposition in a marriage. 2 people from different backgrounds managing a joint checking account? Something I find really interesting is I thought being thrifty in the grocery store was a sign that I was a good manager of his money; it was news to me that he viewed it not as a compliment but as a public declaration that he was not providing well for me. Compromise & adjust. We started with R handling the bookwork but it only took a couple months of him hating every minute of balancing a checkbook and me going crazy that he’d just change the balance to match the bank instead of looking for the missing pennies, to realize in our case it will work better to switch roles. And we lived happily ever after.

We are committed to honoring God first with our finances. We believe all things come from & belong to Him. We are die-hard pro-tithing (don’t even let me get on that soapbox!). God has never failed to provide for us. Lean times can make or break a marriage. You can let money tear you down and make you bitter about people who appear to have more than you, or you can band together and realize it is just money. It comes & goes, but never once has it brought anyone real, lasting happiness. 

It can be easy to feel like an outlaw when you suddenly are thrust into a new family. It’s like going on a journey into a foreign land just because it’s the land of the person you love. I enjoy Japanese food but I have no desire to live in Japan. I don’t know the language or customs, I just happen to like rice. Ditto for being a Miller. It takes a lot of God’s grace to adjust, adapt and remember just because they don’t do things the way I was raised they’re not necessarily wrong. (Except for the way they taught him to hang toilet paper rolls- that clearly is backwards!)

There’s a reason people list in-laws as one of the biggest stresses in marriage. They can either encourage and support you or tear you down and make you feel like you are not worthy to be there. They try to tell you how to raise your kids, manage your money, and spend your holidays. They affect you whether you want them to or not. Only you can decide how much you are going to let them control your life. In the early days when I didn’t feel welcome, I made a conscious choice to still respect my in-laws. It was their love that created the love of my life, without them there would be no R for me to love, and I owed them for that. Did I want to call his mom “mom” right away? No, it felt 31 kinds of awkward but I forced it anyway.  I thank God our relationship is much better today and I feel accepted for who I am.   

One of the largest pieces of our story is the meshing our spiritual lives together. It was never a question to me that I was going to become a member of his church. How can 2 walk together except they be agreed? But I wasn’t quite ready for my church to send a church letter to his church while we were on our honeymoon -without being asked or advising me they were going to do so; perhaps a little bit like a baby bird feels its parents push it out of the nest. Hey, hey, did anybody notice I’m not ready for this? Flap-flap. Free fall. Flap-flap. In this case, a tradition I don’t completely understand/appreciate of being something called a ‘proving member’ first was a good thing. I flapped frantically and fell to the ground many, many times. I still do. When it comes to spiritual genetic makeup, apparently I am a turkey in an eagle world. I have never learned to soar and will never make a good eagle Beachy. But what astounds me is that in my early days of trying, I had several respected Beachy bishops ask me the secret to adapting from Mennonite to Beachy culture so well. Like I would know anything about that! The best I could do at coming up with an intelligent answer was to say it is whatever you make up your mind to do. You have to vow to make his people your people, you have to want to be a part of his church. Easy? Are you kidding? No, it’s not easy. Excuse me while I laugh hysterically. Or hide in my closet to take deep, cleansing breaths.   

There are so many, many differences between the churches we were raised in. I grew up wearing printed fabric dresses and ruffles; his sisters grew up wearing only solid colors. I grew up with hemlines to the knee; his church wears hemlines that tend to go up and down but generally mid-calf. I grew up on diet of instrumental music. Listened to on a radio. Gasp! His church was strictly acapella. And the radio was viewed as a tool of devil. My church did not allow beards, his church required them. My church taught the head covering is symbol of submission to God and therefore only worn by those ladies who have submitted their life to Christ, while his church slapped them on preschoolers. So many adjustments. I’m not saying these things to poke fun at either of our churches, but to illustrate the adjustments we had to make in our marriage that doesn’t happen when you marry within your own culture. I've said it before and I'll say it again- You don’t just throw away the things you have been taught all your life.

And it was all very confusing –how far do you take the idea of “plain”? I remember so clearly shopping for sheets for our bed shortly before we got married. I found the loveliest set of pastel floral sheets, but nary a set of solid color sheets that were worthy of my new little nest could I find. I asked the bishop’s wife if Beachys are allowed to sleep on floral sheets or if our sheets & curtains must also be solid colors. Judging by the look on her face, no one had ever asked her that question before! I was serious- I didn’t know. And I wasn't really the "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" variety.  

His church had a choir, whose acapella music has been played around the world. I came on board just in time to be a part of the Flight FINAL era. I grew up listening to that on a LP record at my grandma’s house. (Did that just make me sound dinosaur ancient?) I was at the very first choir practice when they were attempting to learn the Hallelujah Chorus; the choir director said if they can’t sing that then they may as well not learn the rest of the program because the Hallelujah Chorus is essential for the grand finale. The first practice was not encouraging, but I underestimated their ability. Eventually they mastered not only the Hallelujah Chorus, but also the entire Flight FINAL program.  

We had a lot of good times singing with the choir when we were young married, but choir also highlighted another big difference between my church and his. At my church, people came early. You used the extra time before the service began to get in a worshipful mood. (We all know the finest Mennonite moments are generally not when a family is trying to get out the door for church on time, right?) At his church, being late is an art form they have perfected. The difference is just as distinct after the service; my church was nearly empty 15 minutes after the service, his church had something of a social happy hour, with ‘hour’ being the key word. After all these years, introverted me still has not adjusted to this extended ‘after service’, but I did learn very early on that it is not acceptable to joke “well, shall I get out a sleeping bag or are we going home sometime this evening yet?” [true story] 

Something that would only happen to this church is one Sunday evening we [the choir] gave a program at a church and afterwards we were visiting when all at once we realized everyone had left except our choir and the janitor. Who was surely wishing we would stop chatting and leave so he could close up. I also remember the time we were going to give a program and the director was late. So late that we were already filing up the aisle in the church to start singing, with an alternate director designated spur of the moment. I was not a very flexible person at that time in my life, so that kind of thing almost sent me over the edge. They say if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I can now run late or be spontaneous with the best of them when the occasion calls for it.  

            

Another thing was his church was made up largely of people who could speak a dialect known as ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ (which is weirdly ironic because the different states have their own brand of this dialect and tend to make fun of the ones who are literally from PA and speak that brand of PA Dutch). My dad can speak it, my mom can understand it but doesn’t speak it, so I grew up with only a basic knowledge of the language. However, in my new church and new family, people would literally switch from English to Dutch mid-sentence without even realizing it. A modern day Tower of Babel!!! I’ll just go ahead and admit that I have on occasion laughed at a joke that I totally did not get, because everyone else was laughing. Over the years I gained enough understanding of the language that you can’t talk about me, but I don’t always track word for word. The difference in dialect between my home state and my current state confuse me. And while I can hear the words in my head properly, what comes out of my mouth doesn’t always match; I tried a few times and was laughed at for my foreign pronunciations so I since decided I don’t need to be Dutch-speaking to integrate into this culture. Especially since it is not the first language of most of us now days.

R comes from a game playing family. I do not. My family was all about words. (What else do you expect from writers?) Tell me- how much meaningful conversation do you have sitting around a table playing a game? All you talk about is the moves, the bids, the strategies of the game. Do you walk away from that encouraged or challenged in your walk of life? Hardly. IMHO, games are boring. That’s just my 2 cents. But then again, I think knotting string together (e.g. crocheting) is fun. When I was younger and had more Energizer Bunny tendencies, it bugged me to sit still doing nothing. Oh, how I longed to take a crochet project along to my in-laws for Sunday afternoon entertainment while they played games. But bless their hearts, these non-crafty people did not understand that crocheting is not work, so it was a forbidden Sunday activity at their house.

But I stray from the original subject. Games. The Millers have not converted me into a game player. (Can a leopard change its spots?) But there is one game I enjoy. Incidentally R hates this game. Compatibility. Each couple has a matching deck of cards and needs to select the cards that best fit the descriptive word being played that round. You get points for selecting the same cards, and more points if you rank them in the same order. R & I are notoriously bad at this game. If the game were a real indicator of our compatibility we are not compatible at all! But I still love to play it and see how differently his mind works than mine. Even when he’s trying to think like me. Ted Cunningham said “Compatibility isn’t something you find or something you test for. Compatibility is something you create.” After 25 years, I think we have created.  

We have even survived a major home renovation. We doubled the square footage of our home. And lived in it the entire time. I’d have to say a construction project is the strongest evidence that a marriage can last forever. The divorce rate in America would go down dramatically if one of the requirements for obtaining a marriage license would be some sort of remodeling project together. It is the true test of knowing if you want to be with someone for the long haul. Can I get an Amen?  

    

Marriage comes with its share of challenges and priorities that don’t always match up. But it also comes with the security of knowing you have someone who knows how to fix the car and take care of maintenance needs. Sure, it can drive you crazy when you just want to hang that picture on the wall but he insists it must go on a stud instead of centered, where it looks right. I tend to take for granted that I don’t have to worry about things like changing oil or figuring out the leak under the kitchen sink. There are components of home ownership that I don’t even think about, like getting bids on gravel for the driveway or fertilizing the lawn. He’s in charge of the practical, I’m in charge of the pretty.

Young love is sweet, naïve, and a little exhausting. There is also old love. Old love is the comfortable shoe. You know each other, you are a little worn around the edges and not as pretty & new as you used to be. You get irritated when he hits the rumble strip –again- but you get over it because you know that’s just how he is. And he’s been that way for 25 years, with no real disasters. You can still eat and believe you could go days without speaking and still be fine because history has proven it will work out eventually. That’s old love.

Over the course of marriage, life doesn’t always turn out the way you envisioned. There are twists and turns, ups and downs, good and bad. We aren’t the same 2 slender kids who vowed to love and cherish till death do us part 25 years ago. (However, one of us might have weighed the same at our son’s wedding as we did at our own. I’ll let you decide which one of us that would be.) Those 2 kids had no idea what life would throw our way, and if someone had told us we wouldn’t have believed we could survive it all. We have been blessed. I have an older, wiser man who supports me when I get crazy ideas (like leading a missions trip), loves me and makes me feel cherished. When I look in his eyes I don’t see perfection. I don’t see a love story that would make a Hallmark movie. I see someone who will fight for me, protect me and love me in spite of all the ways I’m a mess. 

We thought we were in love on our wedding day. We didn’t think it was possible to love each other more than we did in that moment. Now we chuckle over that notion. Chances are, at our 50^th wedding anniversary we’ll say “I thought I loved you then” about our 25^th and smile knowingly.

Here’s to our next 25 years!