Hey there! I am not an expert in marriage by any means, but I have been married for twenty-six years. I met my husband when I was too young, at fifteen years old. So we have traveled a lot of road together and I am here to tell you that marriage is not always a walk the park. There are lots of highs and lots of lows. You have to die to self and fight to stay alive in this world today where it is very much the norm to get a divorce if you get ticked off at your spouse. It is easy to give up.

Being a young bride at nineteen, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I did. But I didn’t. It’s so easy to think that life will be a bowl of cherries and that love will get you through anything. It’s true, it may, but it’s hard and ugly sometimes. You have to have stamina and commitment. I am about to share my personal struggles and triumphs along the way and why my husband and I choose to say “I love you, but I don’t like you”.

Some of my opinions are probably different from some brides that were older when they married, but maybe not. I am not here to judge anyone or make anyone else view marriage the same way I do. I hope to be able to encourage anyone that may feel or be experiencing the things I talk about.

We were married when I was nineteen, he was twenty-three. Yes, that was a huge age gap for the age we both were at, which is one reason we dated for four years before marriage. And still, looking back I know we weren’t really mature enough to be a healthy married couple. We did it though! Come hell or high water we were going to make it work and prove everyone wrong that we weren’t too young. Well, so far we have succeeded, but not without bumps along way.

Due to me having Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Endometriosis, we had our children right away. My husband had absolutely no experience with children and I absolutely believed I was born to be a Mom and that was the most important thing for me to accomplish in this life. He of course wanted me to be happy and he did want children as well, but we really weren’t prepared for what was going to hit us financially or emotionally. We hadn’t talked about raising kids, paying for kids, birthing kids, educating kids, etc. You get the point. We were so young and really were in our own world. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not resentful at all that I had my girls young. I just know that some struggles wouldn’t have been there if me and their Dad had been a little bit smarter or maybe I should have been more thoughtful and more of a planner. I can talk about all the things I should have done but I am not going to bore you with that. I am glad I have the experiences I have and everything happens for a reason.

My husband was not established in a career when our first daughter was born and jumped from job to job trying to figure out the best way to support his family. I stayed home with the baby as we couldn’t afford childcare. I ended up doing daycare and teaching childbirth classes to help ends meet, but oh how the struggle was real. Three years after my first daughter was born we welcomed a second daughter. As much as I don’t like to admit it, lack of money caused a lot of problems between us. We didn’t have two nickels to rub together half the time and it was stressful. We were late on our bills, we used food pantries, I was angry that we let ourselves get into this situation and for many years the anger engulfed me and the person I used to be was gone. I became so focused on how to survive every day that I forgot about uplifting each other and our marriage. My husband felt guilty and frustrated all the time so times were difficult. It became easy to be frustrated or angry with each other and not extend grace to each other like we did before we were married. This is still one of our struggles today after almost 27 years.

I feel like when we are young and seeking a mate we look at life through rose colored glasses. I know I felt like we could conquer the world and as long as we had each other, we could get through anything. God tested me with this attitude. My husband was working construction and got hurt on the job. We went through eight years of work comp. People think work comp is great, but insurance companies starve you out, which means they don’t pay you and make you take them to court to get money to live off of. I practically had a nervous break down several times during this time frame. I had my girls that made me get up every day and work my butt off to provide for us as my husband had five surgeries in four years. The struggle was so real. Pain changed my husband. He wasn’t the man I married. He wasn’t fun and easy going any more. He became depressed and angry. It was during this time in our life that I had to say to him, “I love you, but I don’t like you.” That’s a hard truth. He was my best friend, gave me two beautiful children and dang it, we had plans for our family. One thing is for sure… God’s plans are usually different from our own. Looking back now, I am thankful that God knew what he was doing because we sure didn’t. Nobody really knew how bad it was for us. Over time we lost our home, became isolated and no longer wanted to socialize and spent every waking moment surviving each day. We didn’t like each other anymore and yet we had to depend on each other to survive. Neither of us would give up on the other even though there were so many harsh feelings. I know I married this man for great, fantastic reasons and qualities, but life had beaten us down so mush that we seeing the negative way before the positive. The struggle was real.

I write these struggles specifically to let you know that marriage can get dark. Very dark. It can also be wonderful and fabulous. In my case, I feel like I was extremely young at fifteen years old to even be able to comprehend the magnitude of what it meant to be a wife and to know what I would want in a spouse. Keep in mind here, that I am not bashing my husband. He is a good man and a great father that would die for us girls. The issue is that I didn’t know what to look for. What was my type? Yes, I thought my husband was very handsome and was a great person, but that can’t be the main reasons you get into a relationship. A person can be a great person but that doesn’t mean they are your match. Also, I don’t think he knew what he wanted, we were just attracted to each other and had fun driving around in his car and shopping together, so in my mind, we got along fine. We never took the opportunity or knew to take the opportunity to really dig deep into who each other was. I feel like I ended up forming to be who he wanted and not totally becoming who I was meant to be. Being totally honest and real with you, it is still one of our biggest struggles in our marriage.

I encourage everyone, no matter what age you are, to listen to the opinions of the more wise before you make the life long commitment to marriage and to be totally honest with yourself and to your possible spouse with what your wants, needs and criteria are for marriage. If you want six kids and your possible spouse only wants two, that is a problem. Discuss money! You don’t have to be rich but you both will be much happier if your on the same page about who’s making the money, how much money you need to live off of, how much money to save and spend, etc… Talk about raising kids, does your spouse expect you to cook, clean or massage feet? Even the little things can turn into big things. The big things can turn into little things if talked about between you and consideration is made for each other. Communicate, even if it hurts. Another thing my husband and I say is “I would rather hurt you honestly, that hurt you with a lie.” It’s in life’s darkest moments that reveal our true selfs. “I love you, but I don’t like you.” is our way of expressing unhappiness to each other without degrading or using more hurtful words that would be hard to recover from. I hope you find hope and encouragement in this post and be blessed. Please let me know what you do in your marriage to stay happy and considerate of each other.