My Marriage is Messy

If you walk into our small cottage apartment on a random day, you might find us doing one of a few things:

1. Sitting in our respective living room chairs, reading our very different books. Jesse prefers voice-acting-related content, and I’m in a love and alternate relationship styles phase.
2. Having a really messy argument. This reality used to embarrass me. Happily married people shouldn’t have conflict. How wrong was I! I grew up in a household where I saw two unhappily married people have conflict; I never got to experience the other sign of the coin. But living with Jesse and loving him has shown me that two people loving each other is sometimes messy — growth can look like this. Because we bring honesty into our marriage, we have had painful discussions; some last weeks. I’m a big supporter of truth-telling, but this is sometimes hard for me because I’m committing to being with Jesse — no matter what. I don’t mean through abuse or violence; there’s none of that in our marriage. And to be truthful, if verbal violence emerges, I’m at the other end of the spit-fire. But I’m constantly working to be loving, kind, gentle, and compassionate even when I am angry. And sometimes, Jesse will ask me to feel what I feel — to be angry — but even in those moments, I remind myself not to be violent.
3. Playing with each other. Luckily, I married a man who has a beautiful, light spirit — he loves to get silly with me. We make funny noises; practice weird voices; Jesse helps me do my hair, and we mess it all up; we have a wall-length mirror…