His commitment

That moment when you realize that being 13 days away from your 30th birthday is actually 13 days past your 65th because you AND your husband just fell asleep in one of the most action filled movies today. *lowers head and shakes with shame*

—

There’s this movement on facebook right now, the “Love Your Spouse Challenge.”  I’ve watched with the sweetest warm fuzzies as my friends have announced their unrelentless love for their spouses every day for 7 days by posting pictures; pictures of the now, pictures of the last week, pictures of their children, their pets, their wedding…all in effort of promoting marriage.  And then I watched with patiently, which quickly turned to anticipation, which then turned into question, and annoyance as I waited and WAITED for a friend to nominate me.

Now- I’m not one for the facebook chain “movements”/”challenges” but this one- I was pretty excited to be a part of {….and thank goodness, because Laura S. finally nominated me… Hi Laura!!}  You see, in the midst of all of that following and support of my friends’ marriages, I was redesigning this blog for it’s own revamp (separate from the photo biz revamp, more on that here).  In this newly gifted time and blessing my husband has given me, I’ve decided to jump back into blogging and really focus on this passion that fell behind broken hearts, depression, anxiety, grad school, job search, and life.  And as I was going through old posts, I realized, I’ve never really told you about my husband. {I don’t know if I was scared to write about it, or just too nervous that if I did, he would go running for the hills.  The good news though is that, we’re married now and even if he is a self-proclaimed “private person” he let’s me be… not a private person.}  What a PERFECT way to meld two worlds together and start archiving what’s going to be some of my most favorite content for a very long time.

So here I go.  Spending 7 days– probably not consecutively, let’s be realistic here-– writing about him, and who he is, and what our marriage is, and all that it hopes to become.

---

Love Your Spouse Challenge | Day 1

I dated some real winners, and by winners, I mean [a nicer word than loser] but that really translates to losers*.  I did.  I think my mommas especially had their own thoughts and/or word translations.  And I remember throughout all of them that my heart wrestled with and over, Jill would say, “Oh Nicole, just… you’ll know.  And it will be different, and you won’t have to wrestle like this asking all the what-if questions and analyzing communication…”  Maybe that’s what was so off when I met Trey.  I never once wrestled, because I didn’t have to.  And I never asked questions, because I didn’t have to.  And I never once analyzed his communication.  Because I didn’t have to.

After we met {that’s a story that will have you laughing wondering about my intelligence}, Trey waited exactly 14 hours before he texted me and said, “When can I see you again?”  He was committed.  He said it was love at first sight… I just think he really wanted to know if I was crazy enough to do it again… I kid… kind of.  I was taken back… scared.

And when I told him I didn’t want to date him (in a text message), he said–“Can we still hang out…?” and left out the part about his plan to continue pursuing me.  Because he was committed.

Then when I told him I was struggling in mental “un-” health and again… didn’t want to date him, he said, “Okay, I’ll wait for you to get better and just pray for you…” Because he was committed. {p.s. I have to share this because it still gives me butterflies: he would randomly check-in to tell me he was praying for me and ask when he could see me next– I didn’t have my phone at the time, but my mom and sister and Lindsay would relay the messages to me}

And that third and “final” time when we went to dinner and then a movie, I was all set to end the night saying, “this isn’t going to work…I don’t think we should ‘hang out'” but he leaned down and kissed me.  Because he was committed.

I am so thankful for his commitment to our love and our life together, and especially how he was devoted to it the moment he met me because he knew.  His commitment at the beginning of our relationship was just a preview of what kind of man he truly is.

For example his commitment to my family as my dad battles with age and cancer, and my mom with fibromyalgia; my nieces, my cousins…

and to his own family as his mom grieves the coming death of her father, and his nephews…leaving work early to be with her, or to take them to see a movie.

His commitment to sports and the Dallas Cowboys– which at times has had my support up for debate…

And of course- how could I not include his commitment to his next #1 girl…Sasha.

I never see him happier than when he is with me (and Sasha), with our families, and watching his team.

But this commitment: the inspiration for this entire post.

Commitment that is seen every morning without fail, as the alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m. to build in at least 3 snoozes so that he can make it to work early just to get home early to be with me.  That’s commitment, not just for me, but for our family and our home.  He’s committed to providing for us and to the many employees he oversees.  His work ethic is one that amazes me…even if we do lose sleep and in turn fall asleep in the movie theater DURING THE NEW BOURNE MOVIE.

But isn’t that marriage too??  We did a marriage small group with our church and one of the biggest take-aways that I learned was that marriage isn’t work, but it is effort.  Effort to get up at the butt-crack of dawn so that I can stay home and write and photography and sell skincare and prepare our home for our growing family (IN TIME)… commitment.

The most humbling lesson in our eight months of marriage (and since this is all about promoting marriage) is our devotion and commitment to live not just with one another, but for one another– leaving ourselves aside and approaching everything together for the other person.  And that’s a commitment I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world- my commitment to my husband, our marriage, and our lives together, forever and ever.