The Two of Us

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33 (NIV)

My husband and I will celebrate twenty-eight years of marriage on Saturday. At 10:00 in the morning on June 27, 1981, we were wed. It was a wonderful celebration with all our friends and family filling the pews of the church where we grew up together. I made my dress and the bridesmaid’s bouquets. My bridesmaids sewed their own dresses, (I think they have since forgiven me for my choice of yellow!), and my mom made the tablecloths for the reception. Church ladies helped with the food and music. It was a church wide event. In some ways, it seems like it was just yesterday even though so many years have passed. Thinking about our anniversary seems even more poignant because this week the world’s most famous parents (at least for this season) have announced that they are divorcing. I feel so sorry for their children for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they will now be shuffled back and forth between parents. The news is plastered with each side’s reason why the split is necessary, and I don’t really care to listen. I know the day that their marriage began to fall apart. It was the day that their first two children were born. While I have loved my role as mom (most days), my husband and I quickly learned that in order to be the best parents we could be, we had to be the best couple we could be. That meant that contrary to many people’s beliefs, our relationship as husband and wife had to come before our role as parents. We were blessed that my in-laws provided babysitting for a weekly date night, and my parents kept our kids overnight on occasion so we could have quality time together. It meant taking time to communicate, to love each other and to keep the spark in our physical relationship aflame as well. Things weren’t perfect. I know how hard it is to be passionate when you have a preschooler and a toddler, and many times our relationship suffered when I tried to overdo and be the world’s greatest mom and homemaker, but in time, we came to understand. Someday, the kids would grow up and move out and if we didn’t work on keeping our relationship alive and strong, then there would be nothing to hold us together. Before we were parents, there was enough time for me to show dogs and for him to build cars and still be a couple, but once the kids came along, the choices were not as easy. We each had to make some sacrifices in order to develop common interests. I ride on the back of his motorcycle. He’s learned to tolerate afternoons poking around historic towns and in antique and art shops. It’s what we do to stay “us.” In my opinion, the mistake of the world’s most famous parents was forgetting that they were an “us” as in two of us and not the ten of us.