Thursday, May 15, 2008

The Long Haul

The Long Haul
5/15/08
By: Mia L. Black

When you first meet someone, the game is on. You say everything they want to hear and they do everything you want them to do. You spend hours on the phone and all of your free time with this person. Everything is going great, until….WHAMMO!....your first fight. Then everything bad that has ever happened to you in a relationship comes gushing forward and you have to make that decision if you are going to continue with this person. If you decide to split… you split. But if you decide to stick it out and go for the long haul, when will you truly meet that person you have chosen to stick with?

I ask this question almost ten years into a relationship and four years into a marriage. My husband and I are at another rough point, but I think for the first time in ten years we have taken off the gloves, taken off the masks, taken off the front, and stopped playing the game. Over the past few weeks we have come to see each other for who we truly are. And the thing about it is we aren’t bad people, we are different people. We are people that are so opposite that we are trying to figure out if we have what it takes to fulfill our vows. We have discussed separation and being out of each other’s lives, but deep down inside I don’t think it is what either one of us want. It just simply comes down to, when you’ve been with someone for ten years, how do you live with the new them?

I am speaking about both of us as I ask these questions, because we are to be blamed equally. When I say new person, I don’t mean there has been a drastic changes. But that person that gave you all the warning signs for all this time, has finally become one person. All the warning signs added up to make a whole and now the pressing question is; is this person the one I want to be with? Do we have to bite the bullet because we said “I do” and brought two children into our lives? Or do we cut our losses now before we hate each other?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions, but I know that God is flicking both of us in the heads right now. I truly think He is laughing at the both of us and saying, “I told you so.” Because the warning signs are what warrants, “I told you so” down the line. Just because we chose to ignore the signs, doesn’t mean they were there for us to read. He has shaken us with a traumatic loss and made us both reflect on the words that we speak. Whether we stay or part, I feel after almost ten years in the long haul called marriage; I have had the first glimpse at my husband. And for better of for worse, I love him.