Marriage {Failing} Season?

Ever been on the outside looking into a situation?  You cannot hear everything {thank goodness!} and Lord knows you cannot see much but you can feel the tension?  

A lot of people are living their lives through windows.  Maybe its Facebook, Twitter, blogs, emails.  Sometimes it is right in front of you and it is awkward.

Unfortunately, we're seeing things happen through several windows.  

It seems like it is the "marriage failing" season for many couples.  

That's bad news.

Each of the couples were married young.  It's like they turned 21, got hammered, then got married. {In just that order...}

Now they are looking at each other with passion{ate} hate.

They can't communicate or they just will not do it.  They are disgusted by one another.  They toy with moving on but for "reasons" they just do not do it.

No, they aren't working on their marriage by seeking counseling or even simply doing things together.

They are just sitting and miserable...like lame ducks.

As they swim in circles, quacking and hissing at each other all the other birds are like:  

What the shiz is going on with those screw ball mallards?

My husband and I have had some major lows in our years of marriage.  They were tough tests.  They left us in tears and at rock bottom.  It has not always been happy go lucky.

But we were't settling for just co-existing.  We also weren't for the divorce option.

I do not bash divorce because it is something that is valid for many marriages.  As a kid I prayed my parents would divorce because they were a really bad fit and it made my life not too daisies and rosebuds.  

However, for us it wasn't the option best suited for he and I.

We made a few adjustments and took a lot of time to really think and pray and figure things out on our own.  We decided upon these pillars of a good marriage:

No one else is apart of our marriage.  We don't air our issues with others.  If we have a problem we communicate about it and work through it....together.  

Don't get me wrong I still bitch and complain to my best girl Ashley about the piddly crap.  {I swear he called me fat.....why can't he see that I need a break today from the kids....etc)

But the meat and potatoes is this:

Our marriage is he and I.  We are a romantic duo and a business venture and curators of our children's little lives all wrapped into one.  That requires upkeep, maintenance, and checks and balances.  Nothing we do is singular.  It is a "couple move" at all times.  

I think that is where a lot of marriages go, shall we say, wrong.  He sees his and she sees hers.  All forgetting that when they got married he and she became we/they/us.  A strong marriage, to me, isn't separate.  Every decision, every action is made and agreed upon together.

But then there is that whole "c" word.  

Communication.

People act like it is just hell to communicate with other people.  God forbid they take time to have REAL face time and sit across from each other and actually you know....talk.

My husband and I talk face to face and through text and phone calls.  We literally communicate constantly.  

Guess what?  It doesn't get old.  Why?  Because I am married to my best freakin' friend in the whole world.  The one person who always has my back, reads my mind, and knows me just as well as I do myself {and sometimes better}.  

Communication means you aren't afraid to lay it all out on the table and tell them exactly how you feel about everything from their choice of mayo to the way they acted last night to their job to their family.

Communication is key to every damn thing on this earth.  Bad communication leads to bad assumptions and well you know that whole ass thing.  Lets not forget the bad decisions that can make a bad situation the pits.  That leads to a whole helluva lot of heart break and sickening feelings.

So many people fail to talk and then there are so many that talk their heads off but the other person fails to hear.

I say hear and not listen.  I find that most of the time they do listen but they just refuse to hear the words that are being tossed at them like knives or water balloons.

They may be afraid of those words - they hurt.

They may not know what to do with those words - they feel awkward.

They feel like those words are just babble - they feel like there is no control.

That's the "listening" party's chance to open up and give feedback and know it is freakin' OK to say - I don't know what to do.

It is even better to say, we need to get some help.

Those words make a boy a man and girl a woman in the matter of time it takes to say them.  Actually going through with making the steps and taking the leap to working on the marriage makes you a freakin' hero in 2014.

Realizing marriage isn't a cheap decision before a cheap God on a cheap piece of paper is such a huge blessing.  You vowed to love someone and you vowed to take each other's best interests to heart.  

So what are you thinking now?

If you don't work at something to make it better....you have no room to complain.

And for the love of God if you want to continue with your charade of a life at least have the common decency to pull down the damn blinds.