Forgiveness is Freedom

I know. By the social media side of things, Andrew and I have this fantastic relationship. We are always smiling and laughing and totally conquering the adventures called marriage and parenthood.

It’s true. We are perfect.

Are you still reading? Then you know me well and are waiting for the punchline. I don’t have one. Why? Because what the Hell does perfect mean anyway?

I’ll tell you why we’ve worked so far – we communicate. We listen. We care. We are friends. Because trust me, we fight. We fight nasty too. Like it gets reality show, throwing shit off decks, up in here sometimes. But at the end of the day, we care to do better for each other and our family. He is my best friend. He says I am his. (And I believe him.) We put up with each other until we can’t and then we let the other one know why we’ve had it. We’ve broken each other’s trust to the point of heartbreak. We rebuilt it because I wouldn’t want to do partnership any other way.

My words aren’t meant as a slam to those who had to part ways. I would never want two people to stay together who didn’t want/couldn’t work toward the same thing. My words are meant to try to shine a light on the shadows of a seemingly perfect marriage. I like to say perfect-seeming usually means someone is hiding something – a third nipple, so to speak. Everything looks great on the outside – at social media views – but more times than not there’s something hiding. I don’t show you all our fights. I don’t show you all the times I felt betrayed or we broke each other’s trust. Why? Because we forgave each other and moved on and that’s what matters. Besides, do you really want to hear me whining/being negative all the time? I don’t want to be that way so even if you want to hear it, sorry. Seek elsewhere.

I’ve learned, in my situations, forgiveness is freedom. Safeguarding my joy and deciding what matters. My heart is lighter and my friendship is stronger than it was when I was holding anger and resentment. Pretty perfect to me.