Love in Marriage

I love my husband. I mean, I really head-over-heels, crazy-passionately, no-doubt-in-my-mind LOVE my husband.

I've loved him ever since we got past that "ewww-he-has-the-biggest-cooties-in-the-class" phase of life.  I loved him as a friend, I loved him as my best friend, I loved him as my boyfriend, I loved him as my fiancé and I love him as my husband.  Every single day I love him more and more.  Even the days when we fight. Even on the days when I'm disappointed in the words he used or the volume of those words.  Even more so when he takes me in his arms, looks me in the eyes, and tells me that he's sorry.  He comes from a family of yellers, who love and fight passionately.  But when he tells me he wants to be different because he knows that loud communication doesn't work for me, and in fact really hurts me, I believe him.  You know why? Because he doesn't just say it...he acts upon it.  If I could make a graph of all the time he's yelled since we got married, it would reveal a drastic change between then and now.  Sure, he still slips into it (especially when he's really stressed out) but those times are becoming more and more spaced apart.  He is trying and succeeding for me.  Because he LOVES me.  He tells me it's because I somehow taught him to be a better man, but I know the truth...he always was an amazing man, he just loves me enough to shed the bad habits that would sometimes hide his goodness.  And he's succeeding a hell of a lot better than I am at shedding my bad habits (don't look in my closet.  I put away my clothes like a 9-year old girl - and no matter how hard I try to focus, I can't even come close to being half as good of a listener as he is).

So what about this broken vagina...
I work at this is because I love him.  I still can't imagine great sex and as much as I want to experience "le petit mort" I can't motivate myself to work hard.  Love is the only motivator strong enough for this.

This weekend we hung out with some friends who are going through a rough patch in their marriage. They are not sure if they were ever in-love to begin with.  And I can't even imagine what that is like.  I think they are going to be alright.  They are fighters and I think that deep down they do love each other...it's just hidden under all the more obvious facts of why they got married (good solid, logical, reasons).  And I think that they'll find that the inner voice that told them they were meant to be together is the same inner voice that will tell them that the love each other.

But still... I am so blessed.    I may not be able to show my love through the great act of passion, but I have always made love to my husband in every other moment.  Even on the roughest days, and the darkest moments (and believe me, you don't survive 3 years of a broken vagina without feeling plenty of those moments), I have never once -even for a second- doubted that our love was anything but perfect.