Five Reasons I'm Still Married...

#2  We Convince Ourselves 

These are being posted in installments. 

To see Five Reasons I'm Still Married #1, click here. To see Five Reasons I'm Still Married #3, click here. 

Photo by Ali Morshedlou on Unsplash

I’d hope that you wouldn’t have to be around my husband and me long enough to know we have mad respect and mad love for one another. 

But not always. 

I mean, sometimes we’re just not feeling it. 

And I don’t mean, necessarily – although this definitely happens too – the times when we want to take each others' faces and put them in a blender. There’s I’m-so-mad-I-could-end-you.

And then there’s something worse: just not caring. 

If someone told you that in marriage you would never go through periods when you just didn’t feel much for your beloved, and you believed it... then, my friend, you got dooped.

My husband and I have decided to not really necessarily proclaim this out loud when it happens. (What would be the point in that? It’s depressing.) Instead, we just convince ourselves… 

When there’s no interest in what the other is saying or no inspiration to plan date nights or no desire to look at one another or try to connect with one another or smolder after one another – this, my friends, is the time to convince ourselves that, despite our temporary indifference, we are in fact in love. 

Pictures help. I’ll scroll back in my phone until I happen upon one where my husband and I are touching and look happy about it. Or maybe there’s a sticky note in a drawer somewhere from your partner that says “Love you, my Sugar Booger.” Find it. Sometimes I just stare at my kids’ faces (when they’re sleeping, of course… because, obviously, that’s when everything is better) until I remember that I created life with this person I call my husband and that must mean I love him. If you’ve got poems to work with, read em. If once she gifted you a lovely thing, get it out. If your favorite foods to eat together are spicy cheetos and pickles, go to the grocery store and then light a candle and consume them alone, for starters.

Conjure up the memories where smolder existed, or really any ones will do when you simply felt like you and your partner were offering something - anything - to one another. 

And then let those memories remind you that it's worth it. Convince yourself that it's worth it (if, in fact, it is).

Then, get to work offering something to one another (preferably, besides pickles).