Marriage

"The View" has struck again.

I don't know what it is with me and that show, I hate it, yet I watch it...it's my own personal car accident that I allow my brain to become grid locked at every morning.

This morning Kevin took Cierra to the doctor so instead of flipping between that and Higgly Town Heroes I just left The View on in the background whilst Ryland and I battled it out over her morning applesauce (I was out of bananas...a mistake I won't make twice). Thankfully the Hot Topics wasn't all Republican bashing, instead my nemesis, Whoopi, brought up an article or something she'd seen about how to "encourage" your boyfriend to marry you.

What not to do: withhold sex, beg him, force him, cry about it, bring it up non-stop, have emotional outbursts at weddings, etc

What to do: be around happily married couples to show him it's not all bad....and I'm sure a bunch of other super use full advice like that *insert sarcasm here*

I didn't think much about it...as usual, I lot interest about 15 min into the show and went off to pick up CC's room. While sorting babies from puzzles from play food I was listening to the christian radio station here...honestly I didn't even realize that's what I was listening to right away. Instinctively I turned the radio on because I'm a sucker for background noise (ie The View) and after a while I realized that Cierra must have changed the station since last time we were in her room playing cowgirls. A song came on that caught my attention...it was about how, slowly, black and white fades to gray...at the end it said, "families don't crumble in a day" and a child recited, "be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little ears what you hear". I literally got chills.

Families don't crumble in a day.

And then that silly segment from The View popped into my head...how to "encourage" your boyfriend to marry you.

There was a time, wow...nine years ago now, that I was all for "encouraging" someone to marry me. I met this guy, he was older than me, stable, from a great family...and I was 19, struggling through college, I had a horrible relationship with my Dad at the time, and was really just floundering. It wasn't a month after I met him that I withdrew from college and moved back to Houston...we became super close super fast and I immediately began talking about getting engaged. He was 25 after all, that's like SUPER grown up right? And I was 19, I knew what I was doing. I was ready. I wanted the big fancy wedding and a house and a stable man in my life...that's what a marriage is about right? So I encouraged. And it worked. In my stocking that Christmas I had an engagement ring.

We'd been dating for about 8 months, I had just turned 20 and I was ready to get married. I didn't think for a SECOND about what it meant to pledge myself to him for the rest of my life. I thought about the wedding and how fun it would be to be a a grown up and be married and show off a diamond ring to every guy I'd known in my past.

Well, we all know how well that turned out since I'm divorced now. My ex has since re-married and from what I can tell, they seem to "fit" sooooo much better than he and I did. Plus he had one failed marriage to look back on as what not to do...we can say I primed him. I'm kidding here.

Nine years, one divorce and three kids after I met my ex-husband, I obviously look at marriage much differently. I think that, besides having kids, it's the biggest decision you can make in your life and the last thing you should feel the need to "encourage" someone to do. If you don't go into a marriage with your whole heart and your BEST intentions you're not giving yourself or your partner what they deserve. Personally, I don't want someone to marry me because my "encouragements" worked...I want someone to marry me because that's what's in their heart. I don't want to get divorced again. I don't want to battle through another failing marriage because I nudged someone along who wasn't all the way there yet.

DUH right? It all sounds so obvious when you write it out like that.

With that being said...my ex and I didn't wake up one day and say, oh enough of this marriage nonsense, let's get divorced! Our family didn't crumble in a day. Years of neglect on both parts creeped up on us.

My previous marriage has been on my mind soooo much lately and when I watched that lovely show this morning and then heard those song lyrics it all clicked together for me. I let my last marriage crumble because, in part, I had put no REAL thought into the commitment I was making. I got married for all the wrong reasons and did nothing to ensure it would last. Kevin and I may not be legally officially by the powers vested in me by the state of Texas or Montana or wherever, husband and wife but that doesn't mean I love him any less or am any less committed to him than I would be if we were married. And I'm going to do EVERYTHING in my power to make sure it lasts...and Lord knows I ain't "encouraging" him to pop the question before he's gooooooooooooooood and ready. (If yall know Kevin you know that the quickest way to make him NOT do something is to try and force him TO do something...so my encouragements would have a severely adverse reaction anyways).

Since families don't crumble in a day (a saying I will repeat over and over and over if need be, just so that it becomes permanently engraved in my subconscious) I am going to wake up every morning and make the decision to not EVER let my family crumble. I am going to be the best Scheidt Pesak Household Manager that I can be (yall like my new title? I'm thinking about getting a name plate for over the kitchen sink...)

I'm having a hard time finishing this the way I want to...my thoughts are getting all jumbly in my mind (my brother calls that "attention deficit, oh, something shiny" or "ADOSS" CC and I both suffer from it, keeps things exciting...poor Kevin).

Ok, what I'm trying to say is...if you're not careful, if you don't have your priorities straight and if you don't make the decision to make it work...how will you ever give yourself or your partner a shot at a lasting marriage? And call me crazy, but "encouraging" someone to marry you doesn't sound like the right first step...Amen?

This post had such good intentions...sometimes I just can't make it all come together on here as good as it sounds in my head, ya know?