One word we would use to describe our marriage
…
Fireworks
That’s right. Fireworks, baby.
Beautiful. Colorful. Sparkly. Fantastic. Brilliant. Bold. Shocking.
and Eye Opening.
and Loud.
And Explosive.
…
Now when we say “explosive”, that may conjure up images of battles and warfare. Or two people engaging in physical combat on an explosive level. But for us, it’s been explosive verbally. Mostly because of the ugliness that can come out of our mouths.
P.A. is not a yeller by nature, but Les is. P.A. still gets angry; he just lets it rage beneath the surface until it sometimes does boil over. P.A. is generally not as easily angered as Les is. And until we met and were married, we never realized we both had so many reasons to yell and be angry.
Now you might be thinking, “Dang peeps, get a hold of yourselves, you shouldn’t be so angry and yelling all the time. You need to check Yo-Self!”
And this is true.
And we have.
And we still do.
In the beginning of our relationship as Mates, one thing we realized is that our relationship was like a Mirror. When you look into a mirror, you see your reflection. You see everything physical… the wrinkles, the dark circles, the pasty skin, the silver gray hairs, the messy hair ( or lack of it ), the root color, the ginormous zits, the flab, the yellow teeth… And then you fix yourself up and you see the “better you”… after using hair growth or hair coloring products, putting on make-up or brushing your messy hair, or your teeth, or your… whatever else you brush. And hopefully, you don’t break brushes, like Les has done. Or break hangers in half, like P.A. has done…
Our Marriage is like a Mirror.
When arguing with each other, it is like looking in a Mirror. What we are seeing is reflecting back. It can be ugly. Mirrors don’t lie.
In the beginning of our relationship, this mirror/reflection made me (Les) even more angry and gave me more reasons to yell. After one of our arguments while we were still dating, I left. I ran out of P.A.’s parents house, around the block, and down the street. This was a rare event. I usually stay in an argument. I confront, yell, and want a resolution. Eventually he found me and we talked calmly, resolving the situation.
When I (P.A.) am arguing with Les, it is like looking in a Mirror. She is seeing everything – spoken and unspoken, every grunt, every mumble, every snide remark, every roll of the eye, or flinch of the shoulder.
Eight years ago, this made me so angry that I once took a hot dog she was eating out of her hands and smashed it up and threw it in the trash beside her. I didn’t want her eating a piece of manufactured, mystery meat known as a “hot dog”. At the time, she was pregnant with our first child. Yes, I truly overreacted, because of a lack of control. Not something good to do to a hungry, pregnant woman. I’ve been a idiot – oh I’ve been one alright.
Both of our parents had concerns for us when they witnessed how explosively we could argue. However, they trusted God and were always supportive, knowing we would hopefully grow thru this part of Marriage.
And we still argue. And we have matured in our arguments. It takes longer before I (Les) yell and become verbally explosive. It takes longer before I (P.A.) wait til my breaking point to expose my feelings. There are times when we both feel like we want to run away, but we don’t.
More than running, we want resolution. We want to grow. We want to be able to reflect each other.
You can never fully escape your reflection. It’s who you are.
And we are thankful, that from the beginning of our relationship, we were honest in our reflections of each other. We challenged each other. We committed to love . We reflected the truth when we were being ridiculous.
We are both still very imperfect. Shocker. We have our own issues. And we both challenge each other as we reflect each other thru our marriage.
Mostly, our hope and prayer is to reflect Christ.
We were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). We desire to continue being transformed into His image (2 Corinthians 3:18).
We will always reflect each other in our Marriage as Mirror. We still have Fireworks in our Marriage. Our prayer to fight less explosively and to love more completely. On that note, we will share more of our story next week in “Marriage as Marvelous”.
Noted. By Les & P.A. Babs (Part 2 of 4 Marriage/Relationship Records)
Noted. By Les & P.A. Babs (Part 2 of 4 Marriage/Relationship Records)
Half Written Records 