Matt and I have been married for 1000 days. In case you’re wondering, no, I haven’t been counting the days. The day after we got married, Matt put a reminder on my phone to go off everyday at 12:00 to remind me that he loves me, which he is pretty good at doing on his own but I guess he was just trying to cover his newlywed bases. It was cute nonetheless so I have left it on my phone. Surprisingly, it’s a good reminder. It makes me smile, even if for just a very brief moment, everyday. It also tells me how many days have passed since the reminder was created.

With this being the first of many blog posts from me, I hope that I haven’t bored you right off the bat. So back to my original thought…1000 days.
I asked Matt what he has learned in 1000 days of marriage to which he immediately responded “I have learned to do my very best to never let you go hungry.” Sounds chivalrous right? Well, he did not mean that in a chivalrous “I am MAN and PROVIDER and you will NEVER go hungry.” kind  of way, although he is an excellent provider. But he was actually commenting on something he had learned to be for his own good and the betterment of our relationship.  If you’ve ever seen the Snickers commercial that sheds light on the fact that some people become total divas when they get hungry…that would be me.  I morph into a crazy person. I can’t help it. Anybody with blood sugar issues knows what I am talking about. One Saturday morning early in our marriage we decided to go to Waffle House for breakfast. This was a bad morning. Totally my fault, I should have known to grab a little something before we left but it also didn’t help that he was taking an old man Saturday morning stroll and chose to take us to the Waffle House across town all the while, I’m trying to tame the beast inside and refrain from nawing on my arm. I learned several things, as did Matt. I learned that Matt doesn’t like to be in a hurry and that more times than not, he moves in slow motion. I also learned to eat a cracker before leaving the house. He learned that I prefer to move with a purpose and don’t have time for lolly gagging. He now knows that I am a pretty well balanced individual as long as I’m not starving. We both learned that there is a Wilson Way and a Wingate Way of doing things.  Our compromise…we go to the Waffle House down the street. The one that is less than two minutes from our house.

In 1000 days we have learned some comical light-hearted lessons but we have also learned some very very hard lessons. When I was in my early twenties my dentist (of all people) told me to wait until I was 30 years old to get married and then marry my best friend. At the time, I had no intention of waiting until I was 30 to get married but I quickly learned that things don’t always happen in our own timing. Matt and I were friends for the better part of two and a half years before we said “I do.” And when I say ‘friends’ I mean just friends. The very best of friends even. There was no pressure. We were just two people who had a lot in common and really liked hanging out with each other.  When we got married we were arrogant and foolish. We thought that because we had such a good foundation that was rooted in friendship that we wouldn’t suffer from what a lot of newly married couples suffer from. Wrong!!! Goodness me, we were wrong. We could not have been more naive.

Our first couple of years were less than pleasant. Well, let’s be real here, they were miserable. Things were hard for us. We had a hard time talking, living together, and understanding one another. We couldn’t understand how things could change so much. We were the best of friends before we got married. We got along with each other. He understood me. I understood him. We had so much fun together. What we failed to realize was that our relationship changed. Our dynamics changed. Our status changed. We went from being just friends to being engaged, then married, and then roommates. We were still friends but a different kind of friends. Several things happened when our relationship changed. I went from caring for him as a friend to being crazy in love with him as my partner. We had a lot of conversations that were centered around “Why can’t things be the way they were? How do we get back to how we were?” The harsh truth that we came to realize was that things will NEVER be the way they were. For example, when we were friends we spared each other’s feelings when it came to what was really on our mind or what we really thought about something. That friendly filter came off and we both began to say exactly what was on our mind and it wasn’t always ‘friendly.’ He no longer thought that every little thing I did was cute and I began to find fault in everything he did or didn’t do. I used to laugh at all of his jokes and he laughed at mine but a lot of those laughs were courtesy laughs, meaning we just laughed for the sake of the other ones feelings. I didn’t want Matt to feel like a dork after he said something totally cheesy so I would laugh. But once we got married things became less and less funny. So many times Matt would ask “why are things so hard now? Why are things so different?” We both brought our share of issues to the table but I brought a few more than he did and one of those happened to be a pretty big one…trust.

Being friends requires trust but be spouses requires trust on a whole other level. There isn’t a lot on the line when it comes to being friends. Well, there is, but there is significantly more on the line when it comes to being a husband and wife. When we were friends there was still a wall there, at least for me. I had a wall and I was very reluctant to let anyone in but when I finally let Matt in,  that wall came tumbling down. Losing the wall meant that I was exposed and vulnerable. I fell in love and I fell hard. I read something one time that “love is giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting that they won’t.” I never really understood that before I got married but I get it now. I totally get it. I love him so very very much and if I lost him I don’t know what I would do with myself and I have to trust that he will never choose to live without me and force me to live without him.

Loving someone more than yourself is foreign to us, to ALL of us. It is human nature to always look out for yourself and make sure that your own needs are met. Matt and I were both almost 30 years old before we got married. Even though we were old friends, we were both very new at being selfless and loving selflessly. When that light bulb went off we began to cut one another some slack. We are still learning how to love each other better and I pray we never stop trying to figure it out. If everyday I try to love him more than he loves me and in return he tries to love me more than I love him, I think we will find ourselves wrapped in a tremendous amount of love.

Our friendship may fail but at the end of the day, our LoveWilWin.