Here is what my husband and I had to say about our 7 years of marriage together. We hope our children will enjoy watching this in the future. Part 2 of 2.
To view in HD, click on this link: http://vimeo.com/69466198
To view Part 1, click on this link: http://vimeo.com/69013514
7th Anniversary Part 2 from Maria Parry on Vimeo.
Here is what my husband and I had to say about our 7 years of marriage together. We hope our children will enjoy watching this in the future.
To view in HD, click on this link: https://vimeo.com/69013514
7th Anniversary Part 1 from Maria Parry on Vimeo.
We all enter marriage with an optimistic view. We enter with some sort of a sandcastle-type image of what our marriage will look like. In our vows, we exchange words such as “my best friend,” “my life’s companion,” “my true love,” and “together forever.” When we’re standing at the altar, not many of us think of the hard times we may face in our marriage. No, we’re dreaming of all the good times. We’re picturing eternal bliss. That’s why, at the altar, it’s easy to vow the words “until death do us part.”
After the wedding comes the honeymoon. But shortly after the honeymoon…life happens. You both thought you were so great at meeting each other’s needs and desires. Then, one day, you have a really bad day…and you’re waiting for your spouse to help you feel better. Little did you know, he also had a really bad day (maybe worse than yours), and he’s anxiously waiting for you to help him feel better. When you see each other, you both quickly discover that your expectations are not being met. You’re disappointed. Disappointment turns into self-pity; self-pity turns into resentment. Before long, you’re thinking to yourself: This is not how I thought it was going to look like.
Jesus knew exactly what it was going to look like, when He decided to enter into a love relationship with humanity. He knew we’d have many bad days. He knew we’d betray Him. He knew we’d reject Him. He knew we’d disappoint Him. But He came anyway. He served anyway. He loved anyway. He gave His all for us anyway. The Bible compares earthly marriage covenant to the divine covenant between Christ and the church. There’s nothing He didn’t give. He completely set Himself aside for the sake of those He loved. His love was characterized by humility.
The longer I’m married, the more I’m convinced of this truth. Most of us have a wrong idea about the goal of marriage. The primary goal of marriage is not happiness. The primary goal of marriage is that we learn to love like Jesus. Marriage provides a great opportunity for us to grow in this area. I experience this opportunity daily. It’s hard, extremely hard, to put my needs and desires aside. Trust me, I know how hard it is; I grew up as an only child! Let’s think about this again. After I have a bad day with the kids, I anxiously wait for Allan to come home, hoping (actually pretty much expecting) he will take over. He’s late. I’m irritated. He finally comes home. Not only is he late, he’s irritated over something that happened at work. Wait a minute! What gives him the right? It’s my turn! Who, in their natural state of mind, can at that moment set aside their own frustrations and instead focus on meeting the needs of their spouse? Yet what better opportunity can there be to practice what Jesus did for us? I know I can’t, not with my own strength. I not only need Christ’s example to follow, I need His power and grace daily to love like He did.
I have not conquered this skill…not even in the least. But I am committed to growing. I’m committed because Christ made the same commitment to me. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Thankfully, I’m married to a man who is also committed to this goal. He’s actually way better at expressing unselfish love than I am. We both still have so much more room to grow. Yet what we’re discovering is this: when we focus on the primary goal God has for marriage (learning to love like Christ), then the other goal we had for ourselves (happiness) comes as a natural by-product. No, everyday is not perfect…but for the most part, we are sincerely happy and we enjoy our marriage immensely.
Of course, I’m not referring at all to being a doormat or tolerating abuse/infidelity from your spouse. I’m simply referring to everyday opportunities that come in marriage, when we can either act out of selfishness or choose to place the other person before us. This can easily apply to other relationships as well. Marriage, in my opinion, gives us the most amount of opportunity. And it’s a lifelong opportunity. When we keep this goal in mind, with God as our help, we can vow the words “until death do us part” and never break the promise.
May we grow to love with a love like His…
Don’t act out of selfish ambition or be conceited. Instead, humbly think of others as being better than yourselves. Don’t be concerned only about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others. Have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Although he was in the form of God and equal with God,
he did not take advantage of this equality.
Instead, he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant,
by becoming like other humans,
by having a human appearance.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
death on a cross.
Philippians 2:3-8
“For better or worse.” When we stand at the altar and make those vows, I wonder how many of us truly, TRULY understand the “[for] worse” part. I know I didn’t.
The darkest time we faced in our marriage (to date) was the season of the café trials. Allan was a co-owner of a café, which turned into one nightmare ordeal after another. During one particular season (which also happened to be the first year of our oldest daughter’s life), it seemed as though uncontrollable and highly unfavorable circumstances were attacking him from all angles. Over the course of nine months, I saw his frustration level rise, and he was anything but his usual, cheerful self. It was painful to watch.
My husband is usually a very upbeat kind of guy. When he’s “up,” those around him (especially me) can’t help but to feel happy, even if I was having a downer day. But when he’s “down” and upset, the atmosphere becomes full of tension. I get very anxious. He has such a boisterous, influential presence, and I have a tendency of being like a sponge, soaking up the atmosphere that I’m around. When his frustration level kept rising and his negativity permeated our home, I began to wonder: Is everything going to be OK? How can we get out of this and be happy again? Will things always be like this? Some days, I was actually relieved when he left for work. At least then, I felt all the chaos and anger were outside of our home. Then I quickly felt sad for feeling this way. How can this be? We were only two years into our marriage, and this was not how I pictured it would be.
Needless to say, this was one of our “[for] worse” seasons. How did we make it through? I know that I didn’t handle it in the best way. The important thing is, we did make it through, and in the process of making many mistakes, we came out wiser on the other end.
MISTAKE #1: I threw myself a pity party. As I type this, this happened to me again last night. As human beings, I think it’s pretty much impossible not to view ourselves as the victims, at least initially. So I should rephrase this: the mistake is to STAY at my own pity party. I stayed there for a long time during the café season. Allan was so tied up (even more than usual), and when he was around, I was the soundboard of his frustrations. I missed my fun, upbeat husband. I missed our home being free of tension and chaos. I missed having him around more. I was frustrated too, but I felt I couldn’t dump it on him because he was already going through so much. I kept thinking: What about me? What about my needs? What about my hurts? Again, throwing a pity party for ourselves is so incredibly easy to do, and sometimes we have a right to throw one. Yet how do we get out of that spot and not stay there? The answer leads to my next point.
MISTAKE #2: I turned to my spouse to heal my wounds. Wait…isn’t that what our spouse is suppose to do? I’ve learned that our spouse can be a tool that God uses to bring healing, but God is always the ultimate HEALER. I wanted Allan to make it all better. There were many nights when I cried myself to sleep (in the living room), hoping that Allan would hear me and come comfort me. When I did dump all my emotions on him, he usually tried to “fix” my hurt, which often involved him defending his case (in hindsight, I know that deep down he was feeling very bad for how this trial was affecting our family). My wounds could not be fixed; they needed to be healed. My girlfriends listened and sympathized, but they could not heal. My mentors gave me advice, but they could not heal. I learned some valuable lessons during that trial. Fast forward to present time. Last night, as my pity party began in the shower, it quickly turned into a prayer session. I cried out to God. I let Him know how much this hurts. I brought all of my brokenness to Him. He hears. He understands. Most importantly, He heals. (Psalm 147:3)
MISTAKE #3: I expressed my feelings to my spouse without checking my motives. When we’re hurt or disappointed, it’s easy to speak out of our current emotions. I did that a few times to Allan during the café season. It only made matters worse. Why did I need to communicate those feelings to him? If I was to examine my heart, it was because I wanted him to know how miserable I was feeling, not because I thought it would make things better. I’m not saying we should never communicate how we honestly feel. We do need to remember though, God gave us power over our words. He gave us power to speak life into the hearts of those we love. Last night, as I pondered on this, I realized that the most effective things I can say during these times are often the farthest from what I want to say. Instead of “What about ME?” I can say, “Is there anything I can do to help?” Which one of those phrases will breathe life into my husband, and which one of those phrases will let him know that I am his #1 fan? (Proverbs 16:24)
MISTAKE #4: I let worry and anxiety cloud my mind. Oh boy, it’s scary how good I am at this one. Triggering from one single incident, I start thinking how it’s always going to be like this and what kind of damage it will do to our family. Our mind can be such a tricky device, can’t it? If we let it, it will go through that downward spiral so fast, and before long we’re like a slave to a god called WORRY. I can’t remember the exact phrase my pastor used, but it was something like this: “Instead of being a WORRIER, be a PRAYER WARRIOR.” That stuck with me, and that’s the first thing I do when I begin to worry. I ask God to give me the RIGHT perspective – a clear and balanced perspective, instead of one that is clouded by current emotions. I claim Scripture over our situations. My God says no weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17)! Shortly after I do this, the worry god is inevitably DETHRONED, and my God Almighty is in His rightful place.
The last piece of all this, in addition to all of the above, is SURRENDER. Life is hard at times, and I don’t know what the future holds. In marriage, ten out of ten couples will experience the valleys as well as the mountaintops. Many times there is nothing that I can do to change the situation, and most certainly I can’t change my spouse. One thing I hold on to – and I will keep hanging on, until the day I see Him face to face: I cry out to God, I trust everything in His care, and He delivers me from all my troubles (Psalm 34:17). Not once has this not been true. It doesn’t happen instantly. Often times it’s a long climb back to the mountaintop…but I always get there. What is the reward of all this faith-stretching struggle to the mountaintop, when another valley will eventually come? It’s that when I do hit another valley, like I did last night, the climb back up is a little bit lighter and easier. In the process of the climbing, it’s me who’s changing. That’s what it’s all about. When I climb that last mountain, into the loving arms of my God, I hope that who I am then will represent more of His character than when I first began.
As an added bonus, this journey helps me to become a better wife when we hit those “[for] worse” seasons.
I was a little irritated with my husband today. Actually, I was very irritated as I walked out the door to have my “alone time” at Starbucks to work on my blog.
It all seems silly now, but it turned out to be a good reminder of how I should handle my anger, especially when it’s directed at my spouse.
It all went down like this.
I was working part-time through last December, and right around the time I decided to quit my job, I read a book written by one of our pastors Kerri Weems called Clueless 10 Things I Wish I Knew About Motherhood Before Becoming a Mom. In this book, she talked about the importance of moms having “alone time” set aside regularly, away from children and household duties, where she can spend her time in a way that rejuvenated her. For me, it’s blogging and exploring my “artistic side,” currently through photography. I shared this idea with my husband, and of course, being the super supportive husband that he is, he had no problem with making this “alone time” happen for me once a week.
We decided this would happen on Monday afternoons. During this time, I escape to the library or Starbucks and work on whatever I want (usually my blog). However, it was not able to happen these last few weeks due to various reasons. I was really looking forward to resuming my weekly “alone time” today. Well, Mondays are Allan’s “day off” (technically) from his main job, but he’s a man who wears many hats and he’s usually busy for the first half of the day running errands for our home business. Things ran later than expected with the errands, and he came home later than I had expected. He also mentioned that he needed me to pick up some packaging tape while I was out.
Here was the cause of my irritation: I felt that my precious, sacred “alone time” that I was entitled to was not treated with much priority. What’s worse, it was going to be cut even shorter by an errand I had to run for him. I found myself in a bit of a steamy mood, and frankly, I didn’t even want to kiss him as I walked out the door (but I quickly gathered enough calmness to give him a quick peck).
Here’s what I did with all that steam.
1. Take myself out of the situation. When I’m in middle of a situation that’s making me mad, my emotions take over and it’s very hard to think logically. I walked out of the house as quickly as possible.
2. Pray and seek wisdom. Even after taking myself out of the situation, I still can’t think logically and wisely on my own. I need an objective standard that will keep my thoughts and emotions in line. God’s wisdom is perfect, mine is not.
3. Evaluate my own mood/heart. First of all, whenever I’m this quick to get irritated, it usually means I’m approaching that unfavorable time of the month. I know that my mood had a lot to do with it, since I’ve also been irritable with my children in the last day or so. I also examined my heart. Does my anger come from a selfish place in my heart? If I was to be honest, yes, it did. I did not care about anything else that was going on. I felt entitled to have my alone time, and I wished he had not interfered with that priority. In marriage, I think it’s always dangerous to be at a place where I feel “entitled” to something, instead of being “thankful.” I had forgotten to be thankful for the privilege of having this “alone time” in the first place.
4. Evaluate the intent of my spouse. Was he trying to interfere on purpose? Absolutely not. I’ve come to learn that with guys, there’s usually no hidden agenda. He became consumed with his tasks, and he came home as soon as he was able to. He noticed that he needed some tape, so he asked me to get them. In his mind, there was nothing more that took place.
5. Examine the situation objectively. This is a place where I wish I arrived at more quickly, but it usually takes me a little bit of time. Here are some questions that I ask myself.
-Was this an intentional offense? No.
-Is this something that’s habitual or a unique incident? Unique.
-If it does become habitual or it keeps bothering me, is it something I can talk to him about? Yes, he’s always open to what I have to say, and I’m confident that we’ll reach a compromising agreement as usual.
-Are there other factors that I’m not seeing or considering? Yes. My selfish anger was keeping me from being thankful for all that he does. He works hard for our family so I can stay home. He allows me to have this weekly alone time, not to mention all the trips and events he’s allowed me to participate in, while he stayed home with the girls. And honestly, how long was it going to take for me to pick up some tape?
-Do I have a good man? At the end of it all, I always try to come back to this question. And the answer, without a doubt, is YES!!
Now after processing all this, I have quickly transformed from someone who barely wanted to kiss him into someone who can’t wait to go home and give him a big smooch. I know…women, right?
I do believe it’s important to process my anger (and talk about it to my spouse when necessary), because it has a way of building itself up into a monster if I choose to suppress and ignore it.
So how do I decide if it’s something that I need to talk to him about, versus something to just process and let go? I will be addressing that in my future post. Stay tuned!
Far From a Fairy Tale
My husband and I are not your romantic, Hollywood-movie type of couple. First, we don’t have the look. Second, we are not very classy and elegant. The kind of “passionate romance” we see in popular media does not come close to describing our relationship. If we were ever being filmed in our home, you’ll see us in our T-shirt and jeans (or pajamas), sitting at our dining table drinking coffee, and laughing hysterically together.
Simple Love. That’s how I would describe “us.” So comfortable. So natural. So simple.
I love doing life with this man.
I was a hopeless romantic my whole life. I thought I knew the kind of ideal relationship I was looking for. Instead, the relationship God brought to my life was completely different from what I had imagined. It’s so much better!
I do not go weak at my knees every time he looks at me. We do not passionately make out as soon as he comes home from work. He does not shower me with flowers, gifts, and poems.
Instead, on occasions I still encounter the toilet seat left up. It drives me crazy how he loses his keys or phone or wallet and roams around the house expressing his frustration. He is not shy about passing gas (no joke). He demonstrates these ridiculous “strip shows” before we make love that leaves me crying from laughter (not your typical “pillow talk”).
These six years I’ve been married to him have been so completely different from the “happily ever after” I dreamed of for twenty-six years before I married him. But I would not trade one second of it.
Opposites Attract
It’s not always easy. Actually, in the beginning, it was excruciatingly difficult! I wasn’t sure if we were really going to make it to the altar. To this date, our dating and engagement seasons were the toughest times we faced as a couple (something else that did not go according to my ideals!).
We went through a crash course at the very beginning. We were faced with many differences. Differences in our genders. Differences in our backgrounds. Differences in our personalities. Differences in our communication styles. We were frequently hit with so many conflicts that we not only sought help from God through prayer, but also from trusted teachers/counselors. I had a hard time letting go of my deep-rooted fears and unrealistic expectations. I was looking to him too much to meet my needs and to be my security. Of course, he failed. I was disappointed. He didn’t understand me like I thought he should. He didn’t sympathize or say the right things. He wasn’t sensitive like all my girlfriends were. God quickly showed me through our dating stage (and our first year of marriage) that I had to let go of the unfair expectations I was placing on him. He’s someone I was to do life with – not someone who was there to make me happy all the time. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was a growing opportunity. Marriage gave me a chance to put aside my desires and try to meet someone else’s needs instead. We both grew so much within those first few years. Now, looking back, I see that God was allowing us to build a solid foundation, not only for our marriage but also for our home. Just a year and a half after we were married, we welcomed our first daughter. By then, our relationship was so solid that there really was no issue of this baby getting in the way of our marriage. Next to our relationship with God, we both knew that our marriage took the top priority.
Rainy Days
We also went through some hard seasons together within the first few years. These trials taught me that our life together can’t always be peachy and full of laughter. Since I’m married to such an outwardly expressive guy, when things are good, he makes everything so much fun! But the opposite is also true. When things are not so great, his frustration, chaos and negativity permeate through the home. In those times, I learned that I can’t be soaking myself in “self-pity.” I need to be a prayer warrior. I need to protect and preserve the positive attitude in our home. I also can’t be the “Holy Spirit” in my husband’s life. I need to trust God to carry him through the tough times – and He always does. The tough times bring us closer together, and my faith in God is greatly increased after every trial. They also make the good times even that much sweeter.
I know that we still have much more to learn and grow. We still have many days when our “selfishness” gets in the way of trying to be there for the other person. But we know we are not alone. The security of our marriage relies not on how capable or knowledgeable we are, but on how capable and wise our God is.
These are the three key ingredients to our marriage…with this mix, I know that we will make it. We also long for other couples to share in this confidence.
This category of my blog is dedicated to the ongoing journey of our marriage. I will post some current adventures as well as my past adventures that I have written in my journals along the way. I hope our experiences will give some insight and encouragement to other married couples in their own journey.