Although the ten days that Doug had been in Florida had gone by fast since Cameron and I had both been very busy, it was so nice to have him home today. He caught up on some work, helped with several projects around the house, went on a walk with me and even took me out to dinner tonight. We also made some time to sit down and talk about some serious issues that had arisen while he was gone. We came up with a plan on how to handle two very difficult situations which made me feel a lot better about our long term future goals.
At the end of today I thought a lot about what Father Mike Schmitz had said about marriage yesterday on his podcast "The Catholic Bible in a Year." He stated that nothing affects your life more (either positively or negatively) than who you chose to marry. I had never really thought about that before, but he was exactly right. Your spouse is not only the most important part of your life, but also the most influential.
I feel extremely fortunate to have a marriage that would fall into the positive category. It didn't happen by accident, it took a lot of work. When Doug and I first married, I felt that our partnership was lopsided - he was the positive and I was the negative. At that time period, I truly believed that because his family had more money than mine and because he had a stronger dedication to his faith than I did, that I was the lesser person in the marriage. My insecurities were increased by several things that were said to me by one of his family members early in our relationship. My commitment to Doug was questioned by this person as was my motive for marrying him. My parenting skills were criticized as was my weight gain after having children. Even our decision for me to be a stay at home mom was under scrutiny along with our move to Syracuse. It didn't help that these issues were for the most part said only to me. I took all of it to heart, feeling like a terrible person and a horrible match for Doug.
As we close in on our thirtieth year of marriage, I am happy to say that I no longer see things as I did in the first decade after our nuptials. I realize that I am also a positive part of Doug and my relationship. My role has never really changed in our marriage, but I have grown in it. Supporting Doug and the Heinisch children, while managing the our household has been the mainstay of my life. My focus has changed depending on what everyone needs, but overall I have felt very good about the help that I have been able to give my family. Even with three of the children "grown and flown", I have been more involved these past two years in our families' lives than at almost any other time in my life. Doug's work involvement, travel schedule and health issues have left him with little time for anything else. Thus, I have had to pick up a lot more of the day to day household duties including getting the house ready to sell and preparing for graduation. I have also had to spend quite a bit of time diligently budgeting as our income has not increased, but our expenses have due to inflation. I am proud of the money that I have saved our family this year learning how to do DIY projects myself. Most importantly, I also dedicated myself to helping Cameron through a very traumatic incident, one that has had a long lasting effect on him. This past year has taught me that life is hard. Having a positive marriage relationship has made a difference in how we have been able to handle adversity this year. I am very thankful for that.
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