More Today Than Ever

About a year ago I read an incredibly funny and poignant book, I'd Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper.  When I read it, I think it hit a little too close to home to write about on this blog.  Literally, every other page of the book is dog eared. 

Most of the book talks about  how women today start out with an unrealistic vision of what married life would look like, particularly married life with kids. We tend to paint a very rosy picture of motherhood and marriage to each other.  Then, we are unhappy because we have this extreme sense of disappointment when in our own lives, things aren't so picture perfect.

I can remember clearly sitting in the hospital with my friend Sara.  I was post C-section, sore, tired and emotional and Sara said to me "Do you just love Dave so much more now?"  What? Um...no.  I didn't feel so much more in love with him after giving birth.  Labor, delivery, pain did not equal an overwhelming love for my husband. 

From the book:
People are actually less happy today than in the prior generation.  The first problem is expectations.  Today we expect our  partner to be everything to us.  Our workout partner, our coach, our lover, our friend.  The next problem, is that we tend to enter into marriage with ludicrously overblown notions of what it will be like.  We think we'll have perfect communication; star-aligned value systems; great sex after kids; the perfect house; a long lasting, healthy, best friendship marriage...the list goes on and on.  And while that's all really nice, we need to get those visions out of our heads and start talking realistically about marriage if we want to be happy in it.  Marriage and motherhood are difficult-but they can also be magical and worthwhile.  Counter-intuitive as it may seem, we've got to start acknowledging real marriage--flawed marriage-if we want to learn to enjoy the marriages we've got.  

I think a lot of people told me about how wonderful marriage and motherhood would be, and don't get me wrong, it is.  I think once I realized how hard it can also be, and was okay with that, I started to enjoy it a lot more.  I can honestly say today that I do love Dave more than ever.  Took a little longer than I imagined (ha!) and we aren't perfect, but I think we are doing pretty damn good.  He is a wonderful father, I love watching him play with Samantha. He is an amazing husband, somehow he manages to love me with all my craziness.   I believe life is all about choices.  And, we choose to love each other, and our ups and downs every day.