Striped Toe Socks

A couple in our family has recently separated. They have been married four or five years and have a small son. The man left his wife for a coworker, lovely. I don't know them well, so only feel sad for them in that distant way. It did prompt me to think about why though. One answer came to mind, probably a simplistic answer, considering I know next to nothing about the situation and considering that nothing in life as complex as a marriage falling apart can be as simplistic as one answer.

He fell out of love with his wife.

No one told him that he wouldn't always, every day, love her. Maybe it was her focus on their baby and not him. Whatever the reason, or not, he turned that love to someone else.

We are friends with lots of young twenty somethings. Most of them are friends Alex has grown up with and have become our friends as well. They often seek us out for advice on their relationships. We try to tell them things we have learned in our seven years of marriage and things we have learned from our parents 30+ plus years. Here they are in a tiny list.

~Marriage is hard, that doesn't mean it was the wrong choice or that it won't be good again.

~You won't always feel the same way about each other, one of you may not "feel" that love all the time. Hang in there.

~Life is unexpected, harder and different and beautiful and devastating in ways you can't begin to imagine. It just is, cling to each other and face that together, not apart, not with someone else.


Simple and hard and so worth it.