For Better Or Worse

I couldn't go through 30 days of gratitude without an entry about my husband.  Last year I wrote about Greg's sexiest body part.  If you haven't read it, you can check it out by clicking  here.  My feelings haven't changed one bit.  This year, in sticking with the general style of posts so far, I decided to be a little more general.  Let me start by telling you the things that annoy me most about Greg.  

• He enthusiastically starts project after project in our house, and then stops when it is about 95% done, so that he can move on to another project.  (See previous blog referrals to the unfinished front porch steps and the black tarp on the back half of my house.) 

• He talks so loudly on the phone that no one within a 3 mile radius can hear anything except his conversation.  He also flails his arms and points his finger emphatically throughout every phone conversation, because doing so will clearly help the person on the other end will better understand his point.   He uses the same tactic to encourage the Steelers to play better.   He gets about the same results in both scenarios.  
• He never replaces the paper towel roll on the kitchen counter.  (He will argue that he does, but don't listen to him.  He has a skewed perception of his paper toweling ability.)
• He's too smart to mess up the main part of our house, but he's terrible about putting his stuff away in the areas that are "his."  (i.e. the game room, the utility room, the back yard)  Once a year, he decides that he is going to "organize" everything and spends an entire day re-doing all of the work that he could have avoided had he just put stuff back where he got it after the last time he organized everything.  BUT...he says he knows where everything is!  

This should read "Greg brings a certain amount of order to being disorderly!" 

• He takes his lunch to work in Tupperware containers.  He leaves the Tupperware at work until every single piece of plastic in the house is gone and then he brings home an entire dishwasher full of portable plastic bowls.
• He does the same thing with coffee mugs.
• He snores - quite loudly at times.

I could go on, but you get the point. 

Why would I have spent time slamming my husband on a blog that is dedicated to gratitude?  Here's why: I can easily create a list ten times as long of things about Greg that I adore, but when I married him, I didn't just marry the fun and adorable parts of him.  I married all of him.  Everyone who knows Greg would agree that he oozes goodness - and not in a prudish kind of way, but rather in a very genuinely happy, enthusiastic and embracing kind of way.  While I'm pretty sure that everyone sees the good in Greg, not everyone sees those little things that annoy the shit out of me.  That's the beauty in those little pet peeves between us.  They are our intimacies, good, bad and indifferent.  It's not that they are private by any means, but rather that they are the parts of our relationship that make it unique, that only we can fully appreciate, and that we share completely and lovingly together.  Those little intimacies are the diamonds of our marriage, the gems that only we together as a couple cherish.  I may complain about the projects that are only 95% complete.  I may poke fun at his lack of volume control, or his inability to move the fingers on one hand without wiggling the fingers on the other.  It is really pretty funny, but I'm doing it with love.  When I look at him, even in the midst of our worst fights, I love him.  I love everything about him.  As Hunter Hayes says, "Every little imperfection only makes you, you." 

 I didn't know it at the time, but marrying Greg was the best decision I ever made.  I never truly understood the concept of love growing bigger each day until I had children and married Greg.  It's true.  "I love [him] more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow."  What an awesome promise to know that love even greater than we have ever known is just waiting for us to experience as the years progress! 

It really bothers me when people say, "A good marriage takes work."  Work has such a negative overtone. Work is about tasks that must be done whether you want to or not.  Work is the muck you have to get through to get to the good stuff.  Work = yuck.   I'm not saying that a good marriage happens by accident or that a good marriage never has trials, but I would never call what I put into my marriage work.  I love Greg. I love spending time with him.  I love listening to him, even when the words he says may not be exactly what I want to hear.  Maintaining a good marriage doesn't take work, it takes intent.  It takes two people who purposefully focus on one another, who take joy in seeing each other happy, who invest in each other's interests, who love, support and encourage one another, and most of all, who can see, remember, and remind each other about the million reasons why they are together in the first place when the sailing isn't so smooth.  (Like when that black tarp on the back porch is flapping so loudly in the wind that I can't concentrate on writing my blog!) 

I am grateful for my marriage every day.  Greg is my knight is shining armor, my good karma reward, my comfort not just at the end of the day, but the whole day through.  I love you, Greg.  Today and every day, I am grateful for YOU!