Hard Work and Marriage

It all starts out so simple.

You spend years of your life searching for someone to spend a little time with. Nothing major, so it seems, and throughout some of those years you run upon a heartache or two. Sometimes you think it couldn’t be better until one day a glitch in the system happens and gives you some red flags about the relationship. There were times you thought you were ready just to find out that you’d much rather be alone. You spend some of those years unsure of what you’re actually looking for in a relationship. Is it a close friend? Is it the commitment? Is it the dependability of someone being there? Is it the thrill of the chase? Is it the physical attraction? Is it the compliments this person gave you? Is it the little surprises like a note on your windshield or the flowers or coffee brought to you at work? Whatever the case may be, the beginning of any relationship rarely begins with the amount of hard work that is involved with being committed to one person. If you’re still in the dating stages of life and still sifting through the possibilities of who to pursue for a life long commitment, in most cases, if things get too tough its as easy as saying “I’m not sure this is going to work out.” So you end this relationship just to move on to the next. But if you are serious about marriage and wanting to pursue a life of many years to come and to live up to the accolades of our grandparents and great grandparents who managed to stay married for 50-75 years, you will find this a road that is filled with beautiful sunrises and its fair share of severe weather. 

As a young person, I knew relationships were complex and not all butterflies and rainbows, but I had never actually contemplated how difficult being in a relationship is. Now that I have been married for a little over 9 years, not only have I seen how difficult marriage has been for me and my wife, but I have had the opportunity to hear my friends, who are also married, express the same sentiments as me but with maybe a slightly different struggle. 

Before I go on, don’t hear me say “this is the most impossible thing I’ve ever done. No one should get married. I highly recommend you stay single and never experience this nightmare.” I feel like that is necessary because so far this post may seem like that is exactly what I am getting at. I also want to say that this post is mainly directed at those who are already married, and more specifically with children, as an encouragement to fight for your marriage and maybe see it from a different perspective. That doesn’t mean this isn’t for single people out there looking for help as they navigate the dating world. So hopefully everyone can gain at least a little bit of insight and wisdom from this. 

The bottom line is this: If you are not willing to put in the hard work, then marriage will be like trying to climb Everest in bare feet with a 75 pound backpack on. But what do I mean by “hard work?” I think when it comes to the phrase “hard work” men and women both have differing opinions and views on what hard work is. Now, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but from what I have gathered over my years being married with children, I can tell you that “hard work” is defined very differently based on the dynamic of the family. I want to lay out some ideas of what hard work might be and hopefully I can make it obvious that when it comes to defining hard work, no one is wrong. I will use my own situation to further show this to be true.

Hard work is going to work when you don’t feel like it. It’s waking up on what was supposed to be a day off, but you were scheduled 12 hours of overtime. It’s setting an alarm that you don’t want to set so that you can wake up earlier than you NEED to so that you can get some quiet time for to read your bible, pray, write a blog, drink coffee, work out, or take care of some things before the distractions happen. It’s lifting weights before you do anything else because you know its going to take an hour, and you want that hour to be undistracted. It’s swinging shifts from days to nights every month and sometimes that means staying up for over 24 hours without a wink of sleep. Sometimes it’s looking forward to a day off and that day off is filled with yard work, errands and household tasks and you end up feeling like going to your job is rest. Hard work can be a hobby that you love where you stay up later than you need to for adequate sleep just to do the things you love and give you something to pursue or give you something to be excited about. It’s planning a weekly podcast when you work at least 9 out of the next 10 days and trying to figure out when you can record with your co-host while considering their time as well. Hard work is coming home from a long shift and sometimes faking a great attitude long enough to play with your kids and enjoy what little time you have with them as children before you collapse in bed. Sometimes it’s forcing conversation with your spouse, good or bad, because you either have something you need to get off your chest or you’re not in a good mood and need them to know that your problem is not their fault. It can be using cracks in your schedule to connect with friends on a phone call or while you’re on an errand so that you aren’t taking away time from your family to offer encouragement or simply just to cut up for a minute. Sometimes it’s simply just going through the motions to keep things moving forward even when you just need a day of rest and would rather stop with the potential of moving backward. Hard work can be never feeling like you are doing enough and you push through and lay it all on the table. 

Hard work can be having to wake up and hit the ground running because the kids are up before you and you’re still exhausted from the previous day. Hard work can be three loads of laundry in one day just to see the laundry hamper half full by bed time. Hard work can be preparing three meals per day, sometimes four, for a small group of people. Hard work can be keeping your emotions in check from a stubborn three year old. Sometimes its feeling like all you do is referee never ending fights and designating tasks that seem to never get done. Hard work can be teaching your kids their school lesson when they would rather go watch TV or play. Hard work is scheduling doctors visits, dentist visits, family events, and to-do lists with precision. Hard work is trying to get everyone ready to leave at a decent time to go do all of those scheduled items. Hard work is potty training a two year old. Hard work is being pregnant and feeling like everyone always needs you for everything and you don’t want to let them down. Hard work can be having to tell your spouse whats been bothering you about your relationship knowing that the conversation might not end on a good note. Hard work can be calling a struggling mom just to let them know you are thinking about them and that if they need anything just to let you know. Hard work can trying to corral all the kids for their bedtime routine when they seem to be at their most rambunctious state. Hard work can be taking on a weekly one-day-a-week teaching role for the benefit of your family and their education. Hard work can be not wanting to get up because you just sat down, but you get up anyway. Hard work is falling into bed and knowing tomorrow is going to likely be just like today and resting while you can. 

I think you get the picture. 

What I am trying to show you is that no one task is more important or taxing than the next. One may be physically taxing, but the other may be mentally taxing. Each perspective may be a little of both. Being married is no walk in the park and it requires us to work hard. We never go into this relationship expecting it to be hard work, but if you want it to work and you want it to thrive, it requires you to be all in on working hard. The fact of the matter is we specifically look at our own situation and think “I need a break,” when the reality is that it is likely not going to happen on a regular basis and we often neglect the break our other half needs or wants.

With that being said, if you are feeling refreshed and doing all the things you want to do for hours at a time while your family takes a back seat on a pretty consistent basis, its going to build up over time and it is not going to go over very well. If you always find a way to get lunch with friends or running errands alone that you actually enjoy doing on your husbands day off, there’s going to be some resentment building if he isn’t getting that same time to just chill out. If you’re always playing video games, stuck in front of the TV all weekend for college and professional football, or out doing something with the guys every weeknight, your wife is not going to be exactly thrilled. 

I say all of this, in conclusion, to say that in our homes, we need to be more willing to put down our desires to do the things we want to do and consider what is best for the family. If your so distracted with all the things you want to do, there is a good chance you are blinded to how your marriage is far from thriving. If you are so set on fulfilling goals and milestones, you are likely missing the wonderful journey of getting there. If you are so consumed with daily tasks and using your phone as a way to check out throughout the day, you may be missing some of the most precious moments you have with your kids. Conversely and within reason, if you are so wrapped up in deadlines and to-do lists and how they all must be done today, you are likely ignoring God’s command to rest and not trusting Him to take care of the things that ACTUALLY need to be taken care of. 

Is it hard work to do the things you don’t find appealing? Absolutely. Are they ever instantly rewarding? Most of the time, no. When we stop and consider how hard the work is, and the people we have been blessed with in marriage and parenting, what better way to bond and build trust and love for each other than to do the hard work together? When families come together in the struggle, the struggle has the spotlight stolen by the love we have for those we have been entrusted to. 

Hard work is good. A life of ease seems amazing, but in the end it will ruin us. Comfort is not our friend and yet we go searching for it more times than we should. Learn to love the work and you’ll learn to love life. Life is hard. Marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. It is all hard and we all need rest, but don’t let your god be rest and comfort and the one you seek after most. God is always at work and is working all day to keep everything straightened out on the path they should be set on, and yet He is at complete rest. May we grasp this and feel blessed.