Getting to know Me, Mr.AOK, Uncategorized

The Thing About It Is….

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love and marriage

I commented on a thought-provoking post written by Brittnei on her blog Homemaking with Style, that inspired this post here.  After posting my comment….

August 22, 2014 4:05 pm

I really believed I would be a lifelong Barbie collector and my girls would adore me for doing so 🙂
I have a few Barbies and my girls could care less, which is just fine with me.
I believed happy marriages were fairytales made for the big screen, I never saw it growing up…. well, in glimpses.
I’m grateful to realize happiness exists especially when you open your heart.
All the best~
XOXO
Mrs. AOK recently posted…Summer.

 

I just knew someone would read this comment and think wadda sap!  I get it, I might have thought that to, trust me. And not that I have to explain myself to anyone…. ever. I just felt compelled to write this post on what I previously believed, and how it’s not true.

The thing about it is, I’m usually the girl to see the glass as half full, but I wasn’t always this way, especially regarding marriage and love!   You see, I did not grow up in a Norman Rockwell, but people looking in may beg to differ. My family, as most families do, had their own secrets, lies, and internal heartache.  My parents, although good parents, were not the best partners. Let’s just say I never spoke these words, “Gee, when I grow-up I want a marriage just like Mom and Dad’s.” – never.  As a matter of fact, I think I said the complete opposite, in my head over a thousand times.

When my parents finally decided to give marriage counseling a try for the first time- 16 years too late in my opinion– when my friends found out they were in shock. “Look at them they look so in love,” my friends sighed as my parents danced with each other at one of the numerous quinceaneras we attended that particular year.  Oh dear sweet friends… that’s just passion, my parent’s triangular love lacked liking & commitment.  Although, to be completely fair, my parents did throw in the latter two traits on occasion.  For the most part, infatuated love was the outcome….

It was NOT a surprise to me when the two of them f i n a l l y went their separate ways.  The last two years of their marriage was ugly.  There was fighting, crying, and anger– again with the passion.  Their heartbreak spilled over. As much as all of us weren’t surprised by the split, the drama was another thing.  During their split while trying not to take sides, I had my first full on panic attack.  I was a grown adult child dealing with my parents’ grief while pregnant with my third child, having a freaking meltdown!!

So, understand that my outlook on marriage was never rosy, also realize I’m still not giving all the details because… family.  When I met my husband as much as I was enamored with everything about him, I was a certified bitch! I had a figurative wall up.  My husband, then boyfriend, would ask me how many bricks were still standing, sadly he had to keep asking even into our marriage. I was on high alert, I was guarding my heart, and I wasn’t giving us, us.  I had to let go of the problems others had. I realized my husband WAS and IS in LOVE with me, and I am deeply in love with him.  We are NOT my parents, or his parents for that matter.

There are days that I wakeup and question my life.  I mean, I just didn’t realize married life could be this good, honestly.  I am thankful.  I’m thankful my husband has given me our fairytale, sure it’s free of diamond encrusted chandeliers, fairy godmothers, and glass slippers, but there is plenty of love and magic 🙂  My husband has been taking down bricks and building our castle with me.

Happy marriages can exist, and I get that now…

 

18 thoughts on “The Thing About It Is….

  1. Karen

    August 26, 2014 at 2:43 pm

    Marriage was something that I always wanted when I was a teenager and into my twenties. It looked so perfect and you had a partner for life. While we love our daughter to pieces, having her threw a huge wrench into our marriage. We had to learn to work together again and communicate. You never realize how hard maintaining a marriage is until you’re in it! I finally understand the stresses my parents went through!

    1. MrsA0K2001

      August 27, 2014 at 11:45 am

      I agree, you never know the struggles until you go through it yourself. My husband and I had our eldest daughter early into our marriage, we have kind of grown up together and with her 🙂
      I love being married to my best friend it’s the best, I’m glad I changed my negative ways 🙂
      XOXO

  2. Brittnei

    August 26, 2014 at 3:00 pm

    Ohhhhhh! I so empathize with you on this! Someone just asked in her post what did I wish I learned at school and seriously, because I didn’t learn it at home, which I think I was supposed to, I commented and said “homemaking, how to be a good wife and mom.” Our society has so many broken homes that so many of us are used to finding our own way, but I don’t think it should be like that. I definitely couldn’t imagine having to deal with my parents issues right in my face like that all my life. They split up when I was very very little and didn’t even realize it. And I honestly can’t recall not one person in my family having a marriage that lasted in order for me to see what a healthy, let alone happy marriage looked like. For whatever reason, I had it in my mind that I wanted to be different from them. I didn’t want to make the same mistakes they made concerning their choices with men. I didn’t want to grow up being a single, independent woman who never relied on a man for anything. I didn’t realize how opposite I really wanted to be until I met my husband and he took my breath away. He has dealt with my walls with extreme grace. He never makes a big thing of it at all. He’s gentle and loving and even though we didn’t have the fairy tales you and I watched in the movies back in the day, it’s so much more than I ever imagined. We are each other’s everything. 😉

    1. MrsA0K2001

      August 27, 2014 at 11:51 am

      You and your husband seem to be quite loving and supportive of one another, that’s a recipe for success in my opinion 🙂
      I didn’t grow up seeing many happy marriages, and obviously I wasn’t brought up in a happy married home. It’s like my husband and I always say, “We’ll take the good, and omit the bad,” we’re not trying to model the behavior that we saw growing up.
      I’m happy to love my husband my way, and him his way.
      XOXO

  3. Lady Lilith

    August 26, 2014 at 4:42 pm

    I love the staring quote. Very well said.

    1. MrsA0K2001

      August 27, 2014 at 11:51 am

      Thank you, I appreciate that 🙂
      XOXO

  4. Jessica Dimas

    August 27, 2014 at 1:39 am

    That last line, “My husband has been taking down bricks and building our castle with me” put tears in my eyes. I think it’s so wonderful that you have a great and long lasting marriage even though you didn’t grow up seeing one. I knew from watching my parents that I didn’t want to treat my future husband the way my mom did my dad. Sometimes the failures and faults of our parents marriages help us to see what we want to strive for and do differently. Love this post, thanks for sharing and being so open.

    1. MrsA0K2001

      August 27, 2014 at 11:59 am

      This was a tough post to publish. I wrote it on paper, and debated typing it out, and hovered my finger to finally click publish. I truly appreciate your comment 🙂

      You and I think alike, I definitely remind myself to NOT make the same mistakes that were made growing up. My husband and I have long said, “We’ll take the good and omit the bad.” There’s been a lot of omitting!
      All the best~
      XO

  5. Kristy Mauna

    August 28, 2014 at 2:53 pm

    What a beautiful post. I never saw a good marriage while growing up either – My parents were never married, but we lived together. My dad left when I was in high school and that was it. I never saw love, but I always believed in it. I know that it could exist when the right people are connected, I’m such a sucker for a good love story like yours. It’s beautiful to me. I still have a lot of “bricks” up and I know it can be frustrating to my boyfriend, but a part of me just doesn’t want my kids to experience what I did as a child – but I find that I’m repeating the cycle. We do love each other – don’t get me wrong, but I know if I don’t fully let the “bricks” down that I won’t ever get to experience love like I should.

    1. MrsA0K2001

      August 28, 2014 at 5:53 pm

      Yes, you have to let those bricks get chipped away 🙂 Our past is our past, letting our past follow us into our future isn’t fair to us or our partners. I think I did A LOT of that, I was always thinking what if, and comparing. I love a great love story.
      You and your honey can keep having that, just love hard, trust, and encourage. My husband and I have developed a mantra of it’s us against the world 🙂 The world didn’t think we’d last, we were too young, but we knew we could, because we believed we would. We’ve been best friends, we laugh often, always encourage, and still act like kids. I’m still hot for this guy, and thankfully he’s hot for me– saggin’ and all.
      Seriously, we need to chat for real, you and I have waaaaaay too much in common not to 🙂
      Always love~
      XOXO

  6. Shelly

    August 29, 2014 at 9:46 pm

    I loved this post, amiga, and can totally relate. I still struggle with my upbringing…you know how ugly it was too. And though it has gotten better, I pretty much had to give my parents an ultimatum to get it where it is today: get help or get your poison out of my life. I’m glad they chose the former, but the amount of years and bad memories my brother and I had to suffer through just didn’t disappear. It takes a lot of courage, trust and faith in love to ALLOW someone to love you when you don’t have an example to look to (especially when it seemed to happen to all of our friends’ parents too!).

    I’m so glad you have found your soulmate. He’s just as lucky as you are, cause even though he had to go through walls, the prize on the other side…

    <3

    1. MrsA0K2001

      August 30, 2014 at 4:00 pm

      Thanks, Shelly! I love my parents and I don’t want to play the blame game, buuuut… I’ll just say this, I am *partially* who I am today because of them. I’ve become my own person, yet my past has had an enormous effect on the woman I am today.
      I could bitch and complain until my face turned blue, but I won’t, instead, I’ll just be thankful. I’m thankful for SO many things they provided me, even in their feverish hot passionate twisted love, they showed me plenty. I’m grateful for the love lesson, I’m better because of it. Do I wish for happiness, and for Mommy and Daddy to still be married? Well, I would be a liar if I said no.
      I’m still that little girl inside who cried, and pleaded, “Daddy, please don’t go!” and faked panic attacks to keep him home.
      That’s me… still.
      You’re right, it was hard for us two small town girls to even think true love/ happy marriages existed, when we were surrounded by plenty of heartache and a 50% divorce rate.
      I’m glad the two of us, were able to move on, and love on!
      To infinity and beyond~
      XOXO

  7. Rachel G

    August 30, 2014 at 7:43 pm

    I also didn’t see any marriages growing up that gave me a lot of hope for marriage–but I am so grateful that my husband and I ended up together. There is hope for marriage!

    1. MrsA0K2001

      August 30, 2014 at 8:27 pm

      Yes, indeed! I have hope for us, call me an optimist, but I NOW believe in happily ever after.
      XO

  8. Tamara

    September 2, 2014 at 3:24 pm

    Stupid Bloglovin! I just got a ton of your posts at once. That’s why I haven’t been commenting. I guess I need a better subscription method! They’re not showing my new ones right now. Grr..
    Anyway. Very inspiring! I would not want a marriage like my parent’s and I thought that back then too! They’re still married, though!

    1. MrsA0K2001

      September 2, 2014 at 4:00 pm

      Hey Tamara,
      I didn’t even realize I had a Bloglovin’ for this blog 😀
      How did that happen? Thank you for following me there! I will have to look into that. CRAZY!

      Our parents could possibly be hurt or *embarrassed to hear us say that *publicly, but I don’t know if they can see that we took from them, and learned. In a way, I’m slightly thankful, I’ve learned what NOT to do, and it’s served me well.
      I’m realistic, I know everything isn’t perfect, but I also know things can be better… waaaaaaaaaay better 🙂
      You’ve got to love hard, trust, respect, and laugh your ass off 🙂 IMO
      All the best~
      XOXO

  9. Stephanie May

    September 8, 2014 at 11:18 am

    I love, love, love this post. I totally agree, when it comes to love and marriage, you definitely can’t have one without the other. When I was young, I had *one* couple that I truly looked up to, my grandparents. Things were different back in those days… they fought every now and them… maybe even more than they should have… but the fights never lasted long and they always loved each other. The best part was when they would laugh about it afterwards… that’s love. Even to this day, my husband and I love to just watch the way my grandparents are, the way they fight, laugh and act like crazy old people… Something must be working right because you can’t argue with 50+ years! Great post girl, thanks for sharing!

    1. MrsA0K2001

      September 10, 2014 at 10:12 am

      Thanks, Stephanie ♡
      My maternal grandparents had a fun & loving marriage, they loved each into their last days. I wish I was able to see more of their love. I didn’t live close to my grandparents, I wonder if my opinion would’ve changed back then about love & marriage, if I saw *them* more. Sadly, I only saw them about once a month, sometimes less 🙁
      They for sure were a great example of love.
      XOXO

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