Marriage Moats-Hard or Easy

Published: Tue, 09/13/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

[Listen to Lori read this story at here.]

What is the difference between hard and easy?

I gave birth to nine children. The last ones were born two minutes apart. If you asked me an hour before I held them in my arms whether this childbirth thing was painful I would have screamed at you that it was as grueling as carrying a bulldozer up a sand dune. But if you asked me today, I would look at them sharing one chair as they often do, wearing matching dresses with apple pies on them, and shrug.

"Er, I forget."

It was hard then, but it seems easy now.

Which experience is the real one? I am not sure it is helpful or safe to attempt to convince a laboring woman that this pain is fleeting. For her, the contractions in her body are the only thing in the universe. But those feelings pass.

Marriage is hard, when it is not easy. At times the pain is searing, as parts of our psyche are ripped off their hinges. But at other times it is as replete as a breastfed baby.

I suppose it makes sense. If marriage was always as hard as childbirth, the chances of anyone signing up would fall faster than the scary slides at a water park. But then again if it was always as effortless as snuggling a newborn baby, we would all stay as ego centric as a two year old.

Photo by Jenny Stein

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