When we were newlyweds my idea of a romantic evening was decorating the house and dressing up and sitting down to a six course candlelight dinner, and maybe a walk in the moonlight hand in hand afterward.
I’m sure your idea of romance is different than mine but this is what we would do if we wanted to make a really special evening.
But this year we did none of that for Valentine’s Day. We just got back two days ago from a two week trip, grumpy, jet lagged and with way too much on our to-do list to catch up from being gone.
The house badly needed cleaning, we needed to retrieve all our canned goods from a friend’s garage an hour away, and did I mention that the house was 30 degrees when we finally got home at 6 am?
It had been a rough homecoming and an even tougher two days of Andy being gone and the children being extremely grumpy. Oscar cried most of the afternoon yesterday and Ariel didn’t do much better, so when Andy came home and supper was only half done, I was fighting tears.
Finally, finally all the children were done crying and in bed and Andy and I looked at each other and laughed a bit. Some Valentine’s Day! There’s nothing romantic about crying children.
But we got out the chocolate Andy had gotten for the occasion (bless him!) and drank orange cream soda out of cool glass bottles as we sat on our bed and talked about child training. Yep, you heard right. We named the problems in our household and tried to get a game plan for moving forward.
I must say, my idea of what is romantic has changed quite a bit in the six years we’ve been married. As a new bride, I never knew how romantic it would be to see my husband selflessly change the toddlers diaper, or wipe sticky hands, or give me a hug and let me cry when it has been a rough day. For us, loving each other is meeting needs, whether that’s each other’s needs or that of our children.
Love has changed since the newlywed days, but it is still very very good.
How about you? For those of you who have been married a number of years, how has loving each other changed with time or with having children?
Hi, I just discovered your blog, and am having fun reading some posts. As we’ve been married for 21 years, and this is something I care a lot about, I thought I should comment. Yes, romance changes faces. We can fight it, and make the whole family miserable, or we can have fun with it, and keep love growing! We have seven children ages 1-19, and we can get away some at this point, yet these children are still ours, and our place is generally with them. So through it all, I have decided that romance continues by our choosing to treat each other kindly and respectfully no matter what the circumstances, and just serving each other. I think that is what has us still arguing over how each other is just the best ever!!
Oh my Wendy! Thanks for commenting. It is so encouraging to hear from couples who have been married for a while and who are still teasing each other, appreciating each other and in love!
Thank you!
I’m so glad that you made the effort to be there for the wedding! ❤️ It was so good to see you again! The traveling and homecoming sound hard. I about go nuts with two grumpy children – so I can well imagine how hard those days were when Andy was away from home. -Judith
I can imagine that was a really rough homecoming! I’m proud of you two for adjusting your expectations, laughing, and seeing the beauty in the present. I loved your post and your pictures. ( :
Loved this post, Tabitha! Life brings change, and we have to be ready to move on, grow, and change with it, not try to hold on to what we had or thought we wanted. You both look so young in the first picture (probably because you were)! Keep on naming your problems and finding ways to solve them. 🙂