8.08.2011

Marriage Mondays: Support Systems

One of the things I love about being in a committed relationship is that I have someone to help me carry the burden of living. Let's face it, sometimes life sucks. But having someone to help you through tough times is what gets us through to the other side.

This past weekend I had to endure some tough stuff emotionally. I'm a pretty open person and I share a lot here, but I don't think I'll be sharing this. The point is, however that throughout the weekend, A.P. was really, really great. And it made me love him more. Several times throughout the weekend I told him that I was so, so happy I was married to him and that he was there with me because I didn't think I was strong enough to have endured that kind of emotional pain on my own. And that's the beauty of marriage. You have a built-in support system.

This wasn't the first time A.P. has dazzled me with his supportiveness. Last year, after I was laid off, he was amazing, too. The thing is, for 25 years it was my responsibility to pick myself up when I fell. My mother and father didn't raise a dependent, sad, little wallower (maybe this is why she thought I wasn't the marrying kind, eh?). I remember when we were in Tennessee on our engagement trip (as it is now known), we went hiking...up a mountain. I hate hiking. Mountain hiking only makes the whole thing worse. Plus, it had just rained. At one point, I slipped in the mud and fell. I tried like hell to pull myself up, grabbing onto (I shit you not) a root sticking out of the ground to try to get myself up, only to fall again. A.P. had to beg me to let him help me up. He never really says my name (it's kind of a weird joke that we have...I think it's so strange when he says my name. It catches me off guard *every* time.), but this time he shouted my name, instructing me to take his hand. I secretly hated that I had to. But each time I have to let him help me, I let him in my heart a little and I get a little...softer, for lack of a better word. In the past, it was harder for me to recognize his support as something I wanted, but a year and a half into our marriage, it gets easier and easier for me to let him in more and more.

It's stuff like this that makes me again fall back to the words that define our relationship: Je t'aime plus qu'hier moins que demain (I love you even more than yesterday and much less than tomorrow).

Did it take time for you to let your significant other in? If so, was it hard for you?

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3 comments:

  1. Not to be a frenchie (but I did spend 11 years in full immersion)...

    Yyou actually want:
    Je t'aime plus qu'hier et beaucoup moins que demain.

    You have: I love you more than yesterday less than tomorrow. Beaucoup = lots, beaucoup moin = much less. Et = and.

    And that's my grammar nerding for the day. Sorry.

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  2. This is one of "my motherboard, my self" themes - and yes I find it so hard to hand someone the duty -and power- of taking care of me.
    But I'm pretty sure it's what makes it worthy, and that it's the kind of relationship that I want to myself. You're inspiring, Marty.

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  3. @highdivingboard: The line is actually from a French poem by Rosemonde Gerard, and in the context of the last line of the stanza which we love the most and had read at our wedding, it does translate the way I wrote it up above. I just took it out of context. I also studied French for 16.5 years! Fun! : )

    @Musing: Yes. I agree completely. It's sooo hard. I think about that hiking trip a lot and how now I would of course take his hand. But then, two years ago (almost exactly!) I wasn't into it. I felt I needed to get myself up.

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