The Hardest Year of my Marriage Was…

Since I’m behind the times on pretty much every TV show, I spent this summer watching Downton Abbey. While watching the last episode of season three – yes, THAT episode *sob* – a rare parallel between the life of the Grantham/Crawley clan and my own popped up. Lord Grantham was in a conversation with his cousin “Shrimpy” about the state of Shrimpy and Susan’s marriage. “What can be done?” asked Lord Grantham. “Nothing,” said Shrimpy. “We just don’t like each other.”

This struck me in many ways because it was the advice my late grandmother gave me the night before my wedding. “It’s one thing to love each other; it’s entirely different to LIKE each other.”

Todd and I met in the fall of 1994. I was a naive freshman commuting to the University of Pittsburgh. He worked in the parking lot where I parked every day. We moved to Albuquerque less than a year later, then Reno two years after that. In 1998, he proposed. We were married in a short, sweet “elopement” on a Wednesday evening in January 2000.

It’s been over thirteen years since we said, “I do.” The realization hit me not long ago that we’ve been together for half of my life. That’s a strange thing to consider when you’re still convincing yourself that you’re not old.

Our marriage has its ups and downs like any other. Through it all we genuinely love each other but even more importantly, we LIKE each other. When you’re old and shouting at each other over soup – not because you’re mad but because you’re old – you have to actually like the person who’s showering you with split-pea-soup-spit.

I don’t know if there’s a particular year that was harder than the others but I know right around year five or six is when you finally realize marriages take a little more work than wakeup-makecoffee-gotowork-eatdinner-gotobed routine that plagues most couples. We would find ourselves squabbling more about stupid stuff. We never fought about big things like buying a house or having a baby; it was always about who didn’t fold the laundry {usually me} or spending too much time and money at the home brewer’s shop {him}. In year seven, the little squabbles escalated and one night we ended up in a shouting match over whether or not to consider moving to another state.

That fight was the only time in our relationship that I actually thought about leaving. I would get my own place and sell my brand-new car. I would be ok because I had my own health insurance and we didn’t have any kids. He could keep the house. I would take the dog. When I shared all of these plans with Todd, he was quite floored that I’d even considered separation/divorce after one stupid argument about a job application. He was genuinely hurt that I went there because ending our marriage never even crossed his mind.

Obviously, some communication had broken down. We didn’t seem to like each other very much, though we still loved each other greatly.

It took the help of a very wonderful therapist to get back on track. We didn’t go to therapy as a couple; rather, it was me who had been seeing a therapist since the death of a close friend rocked our world. I changed the focus of my therapy to my marriage. She supplied me with several little tools to help increase our communication and, more importantly, awareness of each other.  We changed our routine by including hikes, bike rides downtown, road trips and more dates with just the two of us instead of going out with a group of friends.

If that hadn’t worked, I had a marriage counselor at the ready to swoop in.

But these little things worked. We liked spending time together one-on-one. This led to a lot of serious conversations about our future, including whether or not to have a baby. I honestly don’t think Lucy would be here if we didn’t have the extra help to get through our issues.

I’m not saying therapy would save every couple. Divorce rates are super-high; but sometimes outside help is needed to get you back on the path of your common goals. If you’re not on the same path, then disaster can occur.

Marriage can be like a car in a lot of ways. If you don’t put some time and maintenance it, it will break down. Obstacles come in many forms like new jobs, kids, moving to a new place where you don’t have a lot of friends…but sticking together is important.

Having Lucy brought its new set of challenges. Post-partum depression almost pushed us both to the brink. When I was in the throes of not being sure whether I wanted to even live anymore, it was Todd’s who was the voice of reason that brought me back to reality. “We can’t do this without you,” he said. I can still hear it today.

So at the end of the day…no matter how many arguments you have about whose turn it is to cook dinner {his} or who forgot to run the dishwasher {me}, you need to go to bed knowing that you still like each other and want to grow old and spit soup at each other.