Marriage Actually - An honest look at marriage

Compatibility Tests, Exception To the Rule.

by Marc Audet on August 23rd, 2008

I was thinking this morning about before we were married, the time between Marye’s yes to my feeble proposal and our wedding day three months later.

We failed everyone else’ compatibility tests. Friends who were also talking marriage told us our marriage would fail. My senior marines (NCO’s) advised me against getting married. My best man even stood me up at the wedding, after giving me a stag party that was so bad it took nearly ten years for Marye to stop bringing up in a BAD way.

The marriage attrition rate for marines in my MOS (Marine Occupational Specialty) was nearly 90 %.

Our parents even questioned the viability of our marriage and advised their respective child against it. Even after our marriage Marye’s dad is rumored to have offered to pay for a divorce. My mom’s first question was “Is she pregnant?” and she rambled on before I answered her (”no”), that I should have learned from my brother’s experience. (btw- they’ve been married 36 years, this Halloween)

After twenty-eight years we are still together and happily married. It hasn’t been smooth sailing all the time. We have had our challenges. We have been though richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, and in the far distant future in death we will part. Unless Jesus comes back first.

We have dealt with infidelity. Marye has had health problems in the past. In the first year of our marriage Marye had an pelvic abscess that almost burst. It would have been fatal.  The results of that were six weeks in the hospital on IV antibiotics  and  the Doctor telling us we had less than a 5% chance of ever having a baby. We blew that theory out of the water, with God’s help.

Career struggles and other employment / income challenges from the time I was suddenly discharged from the Marines with an epilepsy diagnosis to a successful career in the retail jewelry industry. We lost our first home , but God is good and now we have three homes. We have dealt with sexual issues in our marriage the last two or three years and were in the process of  overcoming our different libidos and improving our sex life and increasing the number of times we had sex a week.

Now we are dealing with my health issues, disability, the Veterans Administration disability system, and Social security disability claims and appealing their decisions, and readjusting our sex life again. I lost my jewelry career this year due to my many Doctor appointments at the VA Medical Center and the problems that arose with me having to use a wheelchair at work. The owner felt my health problems were bad for the business’ health.  I now work at Home Depot part-time. Earlier this year 30-35 hours a week, but because of pain & exhaustion I’m down to 12 - 16 hours a week, and blogging here at b5. God has been faithful to replace my lost income

So you see, we have so far beaten the results of compatibility tests, opinions of friends(they have all been divorced now) and our parents, and we aren’t done yet! We still browse our wedding pictures like it was just yesterday instead of nearly three decades ago. So much for incompatibility

Blessings,

Image:Morguefile 

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