I never forget to tell my children how much I love them. Every single day, without fail, they are smothered in kisses and wrestled to the ground with mommy bear hugs. In every voice imaginable, I tell them how much they are loved. It is automatic and I do it whether the children have behaved or have told me that dinner was yucky and screamed at me because I had the nerve to put them down for a nap.
Married love is not like this. At least it is not anymore. There was a time that the love was automatic, in the early days when our love was new and I could really feel the weight of our love in my heart and it still filled my stomach with butterflies. I don’t know exactly when it happened, maybe it was before kids, maybe after Carson was born, but I know at some point I started to forget to tell Tate that I loved him, to tell him everyday.
Now those three little words, “I love you,” are said only sporadically, when Tate doesn’t need to right some wrong I’ve imagined or when I’m not too tired. (I’m always too tired.) Married love is not automatic, it is constant work, filled with reminders of patience, reminders that we LOVE each other. There are strings attached.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t want it to be this way. Forgetting to tell Tate that I love him can be likened to forgetting to put ketchup on the grocery list. My mental to do list waits to fulfill this intention, but by the time I see him in the evening, I’ve moved on from the thought of a kind gesture to whining, pants tugging children and dinner boiling over on the stove.
Dory
January 19, 2009 at 10:31 am
What I find really interesting is that my life is the opposite. I have to remind myself to tell the boogerheads I love them after they’ve been terrors all day. With my husband, sometimes I don’t even formulate it in my brain before it pops out. I don’t think that this means that you have a problem in your marriage or that I’m a bad mom. I think it just means that it is just a little more comfortable for me to be a wife and you to be a mommy. I am way more confident as a wife than a mom. I’m curious as to how other wife/moms feel. I smell blog fodder!
Dory´s lastest post..Weekly Winners for 01/11/2009 – 01/17/2009
Binks
January 19, 2009 at 11:27 am
Great post! Marriage DOES mean hard work.
And, oh how I miss those days when I could smother my son in I love you & hugs. Teenage years, not so much.
Binks´s lastest post..Interview ME
Janet
January 19, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Marriage is hard work. Much harder than I imagined it would ever be.
You know what else? Some people say, ‘I love you’ automatically, rotely, without putting any actions behind it. Sure, I like to hear the words from my husband. But there are little gestures he makes, like sending me up for a bath with a glass of wine while he deals with the kids; bringing me a coffee; coming home with unsolicited chocolate(!).
For me, these things mean more than the words.
Janet´s lastest post..Reasons to Hate Winter: #157
VDog
January 19, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Bollocks to the haters! (or something like that, heh)
We are I-Love-You-aholics in our house. Prolly b/c I never heard it from my dad. My husband did not grow up hearing it and their family is … well, they’re French, so they just kiss on the cheeks, lol.
The year we got married we took a secular Marriage Preparation course and it was AMAZING. They taught us tools for a successful marriage, and one was Words of Love. Saying you love each other is wonderful for the marriage.
Another thing is to have 5 positive interactions to every 1 negative interaction. Saying I love you all the time helps up our number of positive interactions.
AND even though we are I love you crazy, we STILL have to work hard at our marriage.
Good luck with yours. We all need it!
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Bec
January 20, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Yes! Exactly this.
Bec´s lastest post..Riddle me this
Gnightgirl
January 20, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Outstanding post. I’ve been in a relationship for 2 years now; kids are grown, we take care of our parents, work on remodeling a 100-year old home in the country, and work our own jobs, in the midst of taking care of our friends and loved ones.
We’re at a stage where I feel a bit panicky at the “routine,” and at the same time, I look forward to a point in our relationship where we can bank on the fact that we love each other, and will be there for one another, even when we forget to say it.
It’s nice to stay on top of these things, but there’s also something incredibly romantic about this post.
Gnightgirl´s lastest post..January 20, 2009
Susan
January 21, 2009 at 10:08 am
What a well written, honest and thoughtful reminder. Thank you.
Susan´s lastest post..I am not that important
maggie, dammit
January 21, 2009 at 10:36 am
I was just trying to explain this very thing to my husband two nights ago, only I didn’t do it very well. I’m going to send him this.