Marriage Can Bring Out the Worst in You.

Marriage can bring out the worst in you.

6 months in, I think that can sound like a horrible thing to say.
"You're supposed to be in the honeymoon phase!" "Just wait until you have REAL problems!"

Well, to that I say - people like that don't know how life works.
Life doesn't care about what phase your life is supposed to be in. It doesn't care if the problems of today are easier or harder than tomorrrows - frankly, they all seem hard in the moment.
And that is where I really started to notice that marriage could bring out the worst in me.

I spend all day trying to help people not be in pain at work, it's hard to find 5 minutes to rub my husband's calves/back/shoulders.
I have time for other people but my most inpatient, worst self can be present when it comes to hanging out around my husband.
Passive aggressively folding laundry not bothering to ask him for help because, you know, I want him to want to help, not feel like he has to help.
Sometimes he tells me the same stories and I grumble about how "I know" and skip to the ending.
I'm sometimes short with him when I shouldn't be.
When a job doesn't work out, and you sit on the couch wondering how you two are going to grapple paying bills with half as much income, and you're fighting to figure out if it's human error or if it's God's will somehow trying to teach you a lesson.
When you're trying to plan your life together, and you realize the sheer depth of what it means to have your failures and shortcomings be the others' shortcomings, and how deeply yours and your spouses choices impact each other - that's humbling. That's hard.

Yes, folks, marriage brings out the worst in you. My worst behaviour is around my husband, and I'm ashamed to say it. There have been times when I am more polite to complete strangers than I am to him.

So, this brings me on to my next caveat before you go thinking "Wow Lacy, you're a horrible person."
Yes, marriage can bring out the worst in you. It's totally true: Every little flaw you found in your friend/boyfriend/fiance before: They're going to be there and if they drove you crazy then, you can bet they'll drive you batshit crazy once you're married. My point though:
I can be a nice, polite, charming person. I can also be a positively selfish, horrid person. My husband literally loves me nonetheless. He loves me the same whether I'm that nice person he met at swing dancing, or if I'm the person bickering at him over some silly, stupid thing that only married people would find it worth their time to bicker about. I literally got in a fight with my husband because he accidentally put my princess dress in the dryer. What's amazing is: it doesn't matter. He shows me Christianly, Godly love daily through his love of me, through good times and bad, and for that, he's a wonderful leader for our tiny family of 2 people (and 5 pets.)

It is so easy to fall in love, but marriage makes you work to understand what the true meaning of love means. It means that, even when you're tired, inpatient, pissed off, short fused: you choose to love instead of knocking the other person down, even if it may be easier to do that. When you are angrier than you have ever been (and trust me, that time will come), you have to literally will yourself to forgive, even though it may seem like that person is the least deserving person in the world at that moment (trust me, they aren't). Sometimes your spouse isn't going to act like a good person. Your job is to still see the good in them. Sometimes it's easy to want to blame the person you're with for absurd things simply because it's the easy thing to do! Don't do that, either. It's not your job to knock them down. The world will knock them down. It's your job to bring them back up. Uplift them.

Marriage can bring out the worst in you. But marriage makes you work hard to be a better person so that you become a better version of yourself than you ever could be alone.
Cast aside the selfishness, the thoughts of "me". Marriage isn't the place for that. This has been hard for me. I'm such a prideful, independent person. I pride myself in having it all handled and doing things just particularly my way. (Maybe it's not perfect, but it's perfect because it's my way). Independent work - independent savings - independent drive - independent, self-made life plan - independent free will. My belongings. My stuff. My choices.
It's easy to be those things or proclaim possession of your things. What's not easy is surrendering your independence in some ways. No, ladies, this doesn't mean you have to become a subservient housewife. It means that you let someone into your life to share those things with you. Our way. Our savings. Our belongings. Our life plan. Our decisions.
It's not easy to swallow your pride and say that marriage is not an always perfect, beautiful fairytale of people who build lives together and go on fun adventures and always agree on what to watch on Netflix and always offer to rub the others' feet and do each other's laundry (lol). But you have to swallow your pride. Because that's how you become better: you set your pride aside, accept that you don't know everything, and you accept the lessons that life gives you. Let life sift you and see if you are more wheat or chaff.

Marriage isn't for you. It isn't about you. And it's easy to spout those things when you're not going through hard times and when you feel blissful and happy. But when life pounds down on you hard, and makes you make hard decisions that impact both of your lives very early on, that is when you fully come to terms with this statement. Hard times will come, early on or in between or later. They will come. They test you and show you your weak points. If you get through them, you learn together. We are married for God's glory here: our marriage is to display that glory. To mirror marriages after Christ's relationship to his bride: the church. This requires harder things of us than we ever imagined, because contrary to what society might tell you, we don't get married solely to make ourselves happy. That is not the point at all. It's to show you a great, powerful, incredible love, full of ups and downs and the decision to weather the storms come what may. That it is so difficult, humbles you to think of how much love God and Jesus have, to so freely give love despite their bride's constant shortcomings.

It's through working to build our marriage in a manner that reflects this kind of love that makes us better people. That teaches us to set our selfishness, our pride, our blame, our pettiness aside, and open our minds to something greater than we ourselves alone could ever have thought of. We do it for God - and we do it because we so greatly love the person we vowed to love forever, our best friend, our closest companion, the one person that will love you despite the good and bad, that will work with you tirelessly and help you become better. You do it because although there are hard times, there are infinitely more beautiful ones. Waking up to your loved one's smile every morning. Sharing in their victories. Driving through the mountains singing songs from the early 2000's together. Being on the same side in an argument with someone else. A dancing buddy. Your Netflix and chill partner. Laughing til you cry together. The inside jokes. Sharing one life together: a life so full of meaning you can't imagine it without the other person.

It is humbling. It is hard. It is backbreaking work, but it can also be the lightest weight to carry when you do it with your best friend. It is fun. It is beautiful.

It's the greatest journey I (we) have ever been on. And I know that despite its hard times, despite my own shortcomings and the bad sides of me: it's making me, us, better than ever before.