What Makes a Marriage Filled with Joy? (a series of 6 different marriages)

Back in 1968, people did not make a lot of money.  I think Paul was making $48 a week take home.  I was making more than he was and he worked harder as a lineman.  I remember saying to him, if we could just make $10,000 a year, we would be set for life.  We bought used furniture from a doctor who was moving to Florida.  I am still using the dining room set today.  Paul's brother's comment was "If you start out with junk, you will always have junk".  We didn't need stuff.  We had each other.  His brother was trying to make a bad marriage work.  When I got pregnant with our first child, Michael, I quit my job when I was 4 months pregnant.  I felt that it would be the last time in the next 18 years.  I didn't see a problem living on $48 a week.  All we needed was each other.

Paul was a very calm person and I was a scrapper.  It was hard to get used to the fact that he wouldn't fight back.  I used to throw things and smash them.  I was having a temper tantrum one night and I threw a glass in the sink and it just clunked.  Well, he brought me a crystal wine flute and told me to throw that because it would make a great smash.  I started laughing and never smashed another thing.
Slowly, Paul learned to speak up for himself and I liked him better quiet. 

Then when I got cancer, what can I say?  Paul quit his job because I had been in the hospital for 4 months (1 month in ICU)
The family was told I was not going to live.  Paul was my private nurse.  He was there by my side when I went into a coma and they put me on a respirator and Paul studied how I would be kept alive.  He learned everything he could about ostomy and he studied colon cancer.  He sat in the hospital  all 8 times when they rushed me into surgery to again save my life.  Paul learned how to hook up IVs and the morphine monitor and they told him that he would never find a suction machine strong enough to keep the bile from continuing to give me third degree burns.  It has been 10 years and I still have open sores on my abdomen.  Paul is my hero.  He had no idea how difficult it was going to be on him taking care of me 24/7.  He was a wreck.  He should have been in the hospital bed in the living room.  He had nightmares every night.  He cried every time I took a bite of food. (I had to spend 4 months with my food by mouth)  He cried constantly.  He was never a weeper.  He went in for a sleep study and was put on a C-Pap machine at night.  The very first night, He was nightmare free.  He finally had gotten into REM sleep and the nightmares never came back.  He is my HERO.  The only thing that he would not do was come into the delivery or labor room when I had my 3 children.  He has to have one fault.!

One thing that has kept us as a great team is during a crisis, Paul completely loses it.  If we have to rush one of the kids to the hospital, he is a wreck, pacing, white, shaking.  I am like a rock.  Strong as a horse.  Then as soon as the crisis is over and everything is fine, he is back the strong one and I turn into a blubbering pool of mush.

I think both is true.  Once I fell in love with him I could never live without him.  I don't know how these brave soldiers go off to war and leave their spouses.  But on the other hand, he is so easy to live with.  We don't let the small stuff bother us.  He doesn't have a temper but when he makes up his mind, I know not to challenge him.

Family time.  We try to get the family together once a week for a meal and Paul loves his family.  He shines.  But to chose one special time, it would be the big cruise from Hawaii to Alaska.  We both love Alaska and enjoyed Hawaii but thought the Caribbean was nicer and less commercial.

It would have to be illness.  I suffer so when he is in pain and he suffered so mentally and physically when the reality of my death was very probable.  Also, the diagnosis of our daughter Karen's cancer and knowing she would be in pain for the rest of her life.  I am trusting God that He will spare her life until her children are grown and can deal with the loss of their Mom.

If your husband stayed home 24/7 how would you feel about that?

Does one of you finish the others thoughts?

Sometimes.  I depend on him to supply me information that I have forgotten and vise versa.


Do you like to better when you are quiet or talking together?

Both. We tend to have quiet times in separate rooms more often now than in the early days.  I think that might have something to do with the computer.  We do email each other.


Since you have children, what things do your kids have that is just like you and just like your husband?

I think our youngest son Andrew has his father's temperament.  He is calmer but tends to holds things inside.  Karen is her Mother, for better or worse.  And Michael is probably a blend of both of us.  I wish he had less of his mother but I think that aggression got him ahead in business.   Paul was always too nice.  He could have been very successful but in his life now, teaching children, he is the most successful man in the country.

Do you want your child to marry someone like your husband?

Oh please!  I married someone who I thought was very much like my Dad and Karen married a fellow that was a jerk. It makes no sense to me.  Her Ex was nothing like her father and has never supported her children.  Paul would dig ditches before he would not pay child support.  I can just pray that she does find someone like her Dad the second time around.


Does he want his child to marry someone like you?

Probably but with a little more patience.  Kim, Michael's wife, has a lot of me in her ways.  She lets him think he is the boss but she really rules the roost.  She is a good wife to Michael and she is a good mother. Andrew's wife,Jillian, seems to make Andrew very happy.  They are very much in love.  Andrew sort of has my problem of 'I want it and I want it now" and Jillian tends to control his spending.  Paul never said no to me.  I think the boys are very lucky with the wives they married.  I just wish Karen the same happiness.


At the end of the day what would you change and what would you keep the same?

I guess I wouldn't change a thing.  It is the trials and tribulations that make us the people that we are.  If life was too easy, we wouldn't appreciate those good days.  If the tough days don't kill us, they only make us stronger.


Tell me how you and your husband are different?

We were very very different when we were in our teens.  He was very quiet and shy and nervous.  I was very loud, outgoing and confident.  The longer we were together, the more confident Paul became and he turned out to be an excellent speaker.  He comes off as having a lot of confidence but he admits that he really does not he just hides it better now. 
 
Opposites attract?

Absolutely

How are you the same 2 peas in a pod?


Hmmm.  We really are not.  He is cold, I am hot.  Neither one of us are extremely neat people.  We both procrastinate.  I wish we were both really neat people.  We would have a much cleaner house and be much more organized.

What makes your marriage something special?

Paul


What is your definition of Joy in a marriage?

What can I add to that, except Bravo!