I was 18 when I met my husband. He was 22. We began dating shortly after, and within a few months, I was in love. Five years and just as many breakups later, and we were married.
The end.
This was the night I first told Jay I loved him. I won’t tell you how that turned out. (2/14/92)
Well, that’s where all the romance novels end, right? The culmination of all great romance stories is the wedding day or at the very least a proposal.
Real life has taught me that weddings are just the beginning.
Falling in love isn’t a singular event. Who we are is ever changing. To love the person you married requires you to discover who they are and who they are becoming and to know, care for, and remain committed to the changing versions of that person. (Note: I did not say you need to like every version or every aspect of them, but like and love are very different.)
Love requires commitment, support, integrity, loyalty and so many other qualities that can only be tested over time. Prior to our wedding day, my husband and I experienced several life challenges including the divorce of his parents, the death of my father, and the normal young adult struggles of schooling, jobs, and finances. After our marriage? Well, there isn’t enough time to catalog the tragedies, trials, and griefs we have walked through together. We have also raised children, celebrated milestones and accomplishments, and traveled across the United States together.
More than the good times, I would say that tragedy changes people. Experiencing a tragedy together can form lasting bonds between people. When this happens in a marriage, if and when you survive, you will likely emerge with a deeper love. That was certainly true for Jay and I.
Here’s the reality of love. The first time that cute guy winks at you or holds your hand, it really can feel just like the romance novels describe, electric tingles throughout your body. The nerves before a first date, the butterflies in your stomach just before that first kiss, and the constant need to see that person again, those things don’t last. They are a wonderful and fun part of falling in love, but they are more indicative of hormones and infatuation than love. You can feel those things with someone you date but don’t love. Your body grows accustom to these physical expressions of affection so that holding hands twenty years later doesn’t produce the same physiological response it did that very first time. That doesn’t mean that your marriage will be devoid of passion in a few years, because it certainly doesn’t have to be. It just means that love goes beyond the sparks.
I never feel safer than when I am wrapped in my husbands strong arms. Yet, it is the emotional security that has developed over the years of sharing my heartache and life with him that makes me feel truly safe. Physical, spiritual, emotional and intellectual intimacy in a relationship that has endured for decades is far more valuable than butterflies in your stomach after a first kiss. I far prefer the comfortable depth of the love we have grown over the flutters I felt the first time Jay gently pushed me up against the wall right outside my dorm room and kissed me. And trust me, it was a great kiss.
(For the record, I’ll still happily take all the kisses he’ll give me, and he can still make me go weak in the knees. But married love is way better than first kisses because no one has to go home at the end of the night.)
I fell in love with Jay when I was a teenager.
Our love story was far from finding its happy ending on the day we married.
It was just the beginning of a lifetime of ever deepening love.
Still not the end!
