Marriage: A Rollercoaster With No Safety Bar

Marriage is one of those wild rides that no amount of premarital counseling, Pinterest boards, or romantic comedies can truly prepare you for. It's not all candlelit dinners and meaningful glances across the room. Sometimes, it's passive-aggressively slamming cabinets and stewing in silence over something that felt small but now feels big. Sometimes, it’s navigating weekends alone while your partner’s away on military duties while you're holding down the fort with a smile and feeling their absence deep in your bones.

The Highs: Love, Laughter, and Inside Jokes

When it's good, it's so good. Those moments when you're laughing so hard together you can't breathe, or when they bring home your favorite snack without being asked—it feels like you hit the partner jackpot. You become a weird little team, speaking in inside jokes and shared glances that communicate entire conversations.

There’s something magical about having someone who sees you at your worst (bedhead, bad mood, or when you're extremely sick) and still wants to be around. Someone who knows your quirks and flaws and chooses you anyway. That kind of intimacy is rare and sacred—and occasionally hilarious.

But the highs aren’t just about comfort and chemistry. They’re about the deep-rooted joy that grows from surviving hard things together. It’s dancing in the kitchen after dinner burned on the stove because the song playing is your song. It’s that feeling of safety when their arms wrap around you after a long day, making the world feel just a little less sharp. It’s celebrating a job offer that came after months of anxiety, and the way they looked at you with pride that felt like sunlight.

It’s finding out how strong you both are when you laugh in the middle of chaos. Like when your basement floods and you ended up bailing water out of the basement at 2 a.m., soaked and shivering—but still joking about needing a canoe. Or when you sat on the floor surrounded by your daughter's too-small clothes you weren’t sure you’d ever get to use again, and instead of falling apart, you held hands and whispered, “One step at a time.”

It’s cheering wildly at the school play, holding back tears at kindergarten graduation, and celebrating when your daughter finally gets the hang of riding a bike. It’s the way your eyes meet across the room when your child does something kind or courageous, and you both know in that moment—you built this. Together. It’s staying up late talking about how proud you are, how amazed you feel watching them grow, how grateful you are to be doing this parenting thing side by side.

And even in the times you're apart—those military drill weekends, when you're flying solo and counting the hours until they're back—there's something grounding about knowing your teammate is doing something bigger than both of you. It makes the reunion all the sweeter, the conversations more intentional, the hugs a little tighter.

These highs are built on trust earned and love tested. They’re made of tiny miracles—texting at the exact same time, finishing each other’s sentences, knowing what kind of snack to bring home when the day’s gone sideways. They remind you why you chose each other in the first place, and why you’ll keep choosing each other tomorrow.

The Lows: Miscommunication, Mismatched Thermostat Preferences, and Real-World Struggles

Let’s not sugarcoat it: marriage is also hard. It’s work. It’s compromise. It’s biting your tongue when they chew just a little too loudly, pretending not to notice that they once again "forgot" to replace the toilet paper roll or pretending you're not upset when they forget to tell you the in-laws are coming to visit.

Sometimes the lows sneak up on you. Like when we went three days barely saying more than ten words to each other, not out of anger, just... life. School drop-offs, work stress, groceries, cooking all the meals, remembering Dr's appointments and sports schedules—all the noise of daily life slowly pushing us into parallel lanes. Or when we were so tired, we had an argument about whether or not the laundry needed folding right now or if it could wait until the weekend.

There was a time I sat in the car after a grocery run just to catch my breath—not because of the groceries, but because going back inside meant navigating tension I didn’t quite know how to name. I remember one night lying back-to-back in bed, both awake, both hurting, but neither willing to speak first. That quiet distance can feel like a chasm, and it’s terrifying how easy it is to slip into that kind of silence.

Then there are the deeper struggles—the ones you don’t talk about at dinner parties. The months when the bank account was stretched so thin that just hearing the mail drop felt like a threat. The quiet panic of trying to figure out how to keep the lights on while pretending everything was fine. We learned how to stretch meals, how to say “no” to things we wanted, and how to carry each other through the weight of feeling like we were failing.

And the heartbreak of infertility—those long, aching months filled with dashed hopes, awkward doctor visits, and pregnancy tests stared at in silence. There were nights I cried in the shower so my husband wouldn’t hear, and nights we held each other saying nothing at all, because no words felt big enough. It tested every fiber of our connection. It made us confront grief we didn’t expect, and a version of our future we never thought we’d have to question.

And then, there were the lonely weekends or even weeks when duty called. When military obligations took him away, and I juggled the kids, the house, the pets, and the exhaustion, knowing he was missing bedtime stories and Sunday pancakes. It’s a unique kind of ache, carrying the weight of both parents when one is away serving something greater. It made our bond stronger—it made the “I’m home” moments unforgettable.

And yet, even in the depths, there's this small, stubborn thread that holds. It’s the memory of shared laughter, the weight of history, the vows whispered when things were simpler. That thread is what brings you back to the table, back to the couch, back to each other. It’s what makes you whisper, "Hey, can we talk?" even when your pride is still bruised.

The lows aren’t always big, dramatic explosions. Often, they’re the slow accumulation of little things that, if you’re not careful, build walls. They’re the lonely silences, the defensive tones, the unmet needs that go unspoken until they start echoing. But they also teach you the art of humility, patience, and learning to press reset without needing to win. The strength of a marriage isn’t in avoiding the lows—it’s in learning how to climb out of them, together.

The Balance: Choosing Each Other Anyway

What makes it all work, in the end, is the choosing. Choosing to show up. To apologize. To laugh at the same dumb meme for the fifth time. To make their coffee, even though you can't stand the smell of it. To say "I'm sorry" when you're wrong (and even when you're technically right, but you want peace more than victory).

Marriage isn’t about perfection. It’s about resilience, forgiveness, and the shared commitment to ride out the messy middle parts. It’s about weathering the storms and celebrating the weird, wonderful calm in between.

And maybe, just maybe, it's about knowing that silence doesn't have to last forever—and neither does the distance.