This is What Married Romance Looks Like (Reblog)

I’m participating in Fawn Weaver’s Happy Wives’ Club blog tour, and I thought I’d reblog a post I wrote for our group site, Married…with Fiction. As you know, sadly we are ending blogging at that site, but the vision for strengthening marriages through writing is deep-seated with Becky Doughty, Jennifer Major, and me.

I always enjoy Fawn’s pins and posts, so I knew I wanted to support this book! To learn more about the Happy Wives’ Club tour, CLICK HERE!  And you can find your copy of Fawn’s book, Happy Wives Club, HERE.

And now, on to the post. Hope you enjoy.

This is What Married Romance Looks Like

By: Heather Day Gilbert

There’s a big difference between dating/Lifetime channel romance and married romance. I was pondering the romantic things my hubby did before we married, and they included:

• Writing me notes when I was sick in college
• Writing me poems
• Singing to me when we became girlfriend/boyfriend and when we got engaged
• Hardly taking his eyes off me
• Buying me heather flowers for an event, since my name is “Heather.”
• Holding hands in church
• Laughing with me

Those were lovely, heart-fluttering times. Recently, I was listening to Sinatra singing “Just the Way You Look Tonight,” one of the songs David sang to me, and I just sort of smiled. Yes, it was romantic then, but I feel like we’ve gotten to a deeper level of romance now. More like the “Always a Woman to Me” level…”She’ll bring out the best and the worst you can be.” So…now the blinders are off, but he still loves me. And this makes our love so much deeper.

Married romance with my hubby looks more like this:

• Stopping for my numerous Starbucks-induced bathroom breaks on trips
• Texting me throughout the day
• Fixing yet another burned-out element on the stove for me
• Digging a fire pit outside for my family during our 10-day power outage
• Supporting our homeschooling choice (and me as a homeschool teacher!) to co-workers
• Listening to me rant and groan and shout for five years while trying to get published…there are a few moments of elation, but few and far between…
• Holding hands in church
• Laughing with me

The Lifetime channel rarely shows the “ever after” part of marriage. But honestly, I believe it’s the best part. The part where his family becomes mine and mine his. The part where we nurture our kids and watch them grow up before our eyes. The part where he knows me better than anyone else on earth and knows when I’m just pretending to be brave or happy.

Married romance is real…and deep. It doesn’t look like the stuff in many romance novels or on TV. It’s those things our spouses do that touch us on the very deepest levels.

I’d rather have a Saturday planting the garden with my husband than a poem. A working stove trumps a new diamond ring, I’d say. And one meaningful compliment, about something he has seen in me, goes so much farther than a hundred compliments on looks.

Once you get married, romance isn’t dead. Just different! And, I have to say, better.