If you saw what week we are in, and you did some quick math in your head, you probably already know what this post is about. This week is our one year anniversary!! One year!!
I decided to make Jairo something special for our anniversary. I tossed around several ideas, but eventually decided to go with this: I made a sort of news magazine, filled with stories and pictures from things that had happened during the year, from the perspective of a paparazzi, as though we were some famous couple. The title story was ¨The happy couple celebrates one year of marriage, and all of Ecuador can´t believe it!¨
It is safe to say that here in Ecuador our marriage was nothing less than a scandal. No one believed we would make it two days, let alone a year! I, being North American, am supposedly a sus-standard wife. I do un-wifely things like use a potato peeler instead of a knife to peel potatoes and have even been known to cook foods that are not Ecuadorian from time to time. Oh, the horror!
It was hard at first, with so many people being against me, but I learned the importance of relying on God and keeping your marriage issues in your marriage. Ecuador is an especially gossippy culture, and I have been careful not to air out my dirty laundry. While wives here (and I suspect in most places) take every opportunity to discuss their every problem with each other and complain about their husbands, Jairo and I have the strict policy of keeping things between us, good and bad. We are very private, which I think is something most people here don´t like because they don´t have as much to gossip about, but it has been a marriage-saver. When I talk about my husband to others, it doesn´t matter whether or not we are getting along. I know that even on his worst days my husband is a good man, with many good qualities, and those are the only things I talk about. I don´t complain about him. After all, how would that look to God when just the other day I was thanking Him for giving me such a great husband? No one needs to know about the ups and downs of our marriage. And as a woman trying to be a woman of good character, I do my best to honor my husband, whether or not he is present.
If there is one thing that has kept us afloat on the difficult things, I think this is it. We honor and respect each other. And of course, we love each other. But every married couple knows that some days you don´t feel the warm and fuzzies. On those days, it is my love for God and my respect for my husband that keep me trying hard to make things work. I don´t mind forgiving him quickly, even for big mistakes, because I prefer to be happy with him than angry for something he already apologized for. I don´t mind taking the blame sometimes even when I know it´s not my fault, because I would rather be at peace than be right. I don´t mind putting him before myself, because I find that when I do, he does the same, and we both get taken care of. I don´t mind fighting once in a while because I think it´s a good sign we are both still two people with pulses. I don´t mind sacrificing some things, I don´t mind losing, and I don´t mind that he has faults that he is not quick to change--because so do I!
All of these things are learned, by the way, the product of 365 days of learning. I suspect that in 365 more days, I will have a whole new list of things I´ve learned, because I don´t think you learn as much in all of formal education as you do in one week of marriage.
At the end of the day, I can´t think of anything I love more than cuddling up with my husband, feeling all that love well up inside of me, and seeing on his face that he feels it to. Isn´t it worth some rough times as long as you get to feel that?
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