Marriage Bytes: For Better or For Worse

Slammed doors, raised voices, silent treatments. Morning cuddles, sweet nothings, date nights. 

Pesky habits, heavy sobs, unsolved resentments. Planned surprises, silly laughter, unending conversations.

Images of love and sounds of pain - the cacophony of marriage. 

Remember the vow 'for better or for worse'? 

It's lived every day, in the flesh, in the ordinariness and the humdrum. There are days when it's better. There are nights when it's worse. 

Then there comes a moment when time stops, after a succession of good and bad and good and bad, when you realize, 'Marriage IS difficult.' That moment sinks its hooks into your heart that you'll never, ever forget exactly when you spoke those words out loud. When that eternal expression manifested itself in your life. 

But you say it with a laugh because the truth of it all just amazes you, 'It's really a roller coaster, huh?' 

Life looks kindly on you and your spouse, like a mother to her children, proud and all that you've lived through something true. 

Right then and there, you both make a pact. With exhilarated hearts and clasped hands, you make the vow again, 'I'm never getting off this ride with you. No matter what.'

The same promise made on the wedding day, in front of hundreds of people. But this time, it's just between you and your love, in the thick of it all. What image has ever been more glorious, more human, more beautiful than that?

I say none.

Photo from Elizabeth Messina.