Marriage is hard. It’s a choice, if you think about it. You make a choice to love your spouse for the rest of your lives, no matter what your situation is. We make promises of loving whether for richer or poorer and in sickness and in health. When we take these vows though, we may not always know what that will look like. My husband and I will be married four years this year, and to be honest it has not been perfect. We have to work on ourselves, and our marriage, due to trauma from past relationships. It is messy and ugly sometimes when we have to learn how to fight, compromise, and communicate. We had to learn how to love each other. Not because we couldn’t, but because we have our own love languages and needs. For my husband, he needs to feel appreciated. I remind him how awesome I think he is often, because in all fairness I lucked out. I married a man who is a wonderful husband and father. Me? I need hugs and to be told that I’m doing a great job. When he hugs me, I feel safe and secure. We also had to learn how to work together to fight the common enemy, rather than each other. It is so important to fight the problem instead of fighting the person you love. Part of that is listening to hear rather than listening to respond. I am the WORST at that. I end up listening to my husband’s words with the intent to defend my position rather than to hear what he is saying. That is not a way to communicate, that is a way to fight. Listening to hear the other side means understanding what they are experiencing, listening with the intent to argue is dismissive of their feelings. Marriage, like motherhood, is messy. It’s unpredictable yet wonderful. It is a covenant to put each other first, after God, before anything else in your life. When you wake up every day, you get the option to choose love. I hope you wake up and choose love and that your love always wakes up choosing you.