Our big dark secret (that isn’t so secret…or dark for that matter) (well unless you count the time of day when we go, then its dark out) is Alex and I have been in marriage counseling for the past month.

We entered counseling because the fights are bad, the good times are AMAZING and I cannot stress that enough. We laugh, we chill, we cuddle, and we love on one another every single week. We just were also fighting…every single week. Now we’ve knocked it down to two distinct fights and I think two quietly discussed reviews of situations in the course of a month+. (Quiet enough to hear the cats purring beside us….we can get quiet.)

This blog is and will remain about our marriage adventure. The good and the bad moments, but this series of events has left me befuddled and ashamed. Ashamed that before our 2^nd anniversary of marriage we’ve had several “should we get divorced?” conversations both on the calm, rational level and the screaming at the top of our lungs level. (I’m a match and light up easily…he’s a tea kettle, takes his time but definitely gets the point across.)

In fact, in recent discussions with close friends I’ve had two distinctly different responses. One was “I didn’t really think y’all would get better” and the other was the best advice I’ve ever heard. I was told, after pretty much sobbing my heart out about being a failure at marriage, the fact that all of our friends’ marriages were amazing and they were so in love, yadda yadda yadda and Alex and I … we fight. Life sucked. This friend let me get it all out and then went…

“Stop judging yourself based on other people’s marriages. Remember you only see the 10% façade they show the rest of the world. They only see the 10% façade y’all show the world. No one truly knows what another marriage is like except the people in that marriage.”

LIGHTBULB!!!

After that statement I quit being ashamed that we needed counseling already and started looking at it as, who knows maybe we are normal and we’re just less able to adjust to the changes marriage has on a couple without some guidance. Ultimately what we needed, and found, in our counseling is we need a translator. I don’t speak guy. Alex does not speak gal. Thus most things get lost in translation, even if it’s as simple as “I need to think about this.” The good news is, its working!

So I guess in all of this I wanted to let other married couples know its ok to need counseling. Even if you are newlyweds or have been married 50 wonderful years. Mindee over at Our Front Door has a great post on what your wedding vows really mean, and I’m personally thinking this should be handed out before you actually say “I Do” because reality is those two tiny words carry a whole lot more weight than you might think.

::Wipes Brow:: Whew! I am so glad to have that deep dark secret out. Now, I’m off to the craft store to buy a pirate flag for a cake I’m baking tomorrow. I’ll show you photos of the cake just not me from the party since it’s a pool party and bikini photos are not making it up on the web. Hope y’all have a great weekend!!