It’s kinda sad, I think, how so much of romantic fiction today deals with everything leading up to the I dos. Anyone agree with me? I think back to when Steve and I were dating, and the love we felt for each other then was nothing to the love we felt for each other a few years into marriage, is nothing compared to how we feel for each other now. We’re going on twenty years of marriage next year, and I realize that I didn’t have a clue about real love way back then.
It isn’t that we’ve now had twenty years of romantic candlelight dinners (hello, some child getting the stomach flu right before we were going out as a twosome) or that we just learned how to think exactly alike. Not hardly. No, it’s all the life we’ve lived together, the good stuff and the bad stuff, that combines to deepen love like you never expect it to before you walk down that aisle.
Let me ask you a question: when you think back over your marriage so far, what is the most special day of it all?
Someone asked my husband this awhile back, as I was with him, and I thought it was so cool to hear him give the exact same event as the most special moment in our marriage — even though we’d never discussed it.
We’d had our boy and girl right next to each other — a year and a half apart — and we were done. Those few years of parenting two babies at different stages, then two toddlers at different stages, had done us in. We were finished having kids. Which is what we told everyone who asked.
God was chuckling.
Seven years later our littlest kiddo, the one we affectionately called Hyper Diaper due to his silliness, was born. It was an eventful birth, but he survived and I was good too so Steve went home to bring our older kids to the hospital.
(Tell me this little guy isn’t adorable!)
When Steve and the kids returned, I was in bed, holding our baby. The older kids ran to me right away — but of course it had nothing to do with me! They wanted to see their little brother.
And they were in awe. They caressed his little fingers, kissed his head, stroked his cheek, and cooed all kinds of things over him. Steve and I might as well have not been there, but we were good with that.
After awhile, Steve took our Hyper Diaper from me and sat in a chair. The kids followed the baby like he was the Pied Piper and stood one on either side of that chair, just gazing at their little brother, touching him, talking about him and too him, just marveling at what a little gift he was.
And Steve looked up at me, over all our kids’ heads, and gave me this look that said so much, that this was about as good as it got, introducing our kids to each other, sharing our love with them, watching them fall instantly in love with this baby brother. It was a moment that filled me completely — and made me pretty confident that we’d never disagree again.
God was chuckling at that too, of course.
This was the moment Steve told our friend, that the most special moment in our marriage was bringing the kids to the hospital, introducing them to their brother, and watching them together. It was magical. It is still magical in my mind.
So your turn to answer this question! I’d so love to hear about that special moment in your marriage! Please share away in the comments. Our little Hyper Diaper is much older now and has a soccer game this morning, so I won’t get to check back in with you all until the afternoon, but I look forward to reading your stories. And thank you for listening to mine.
I don’t think I could narrow it down to just one (and happy 20th!) thing.
But I will say there is a lot of women’s fiction that has these married romance moments in it. I don’t think it’s so much that people aren’t writing it, but more that the genres are defined in such a way that romance is limited to pre-marriage and what comes after is women’s fiction. So, take heart, the books are there! They’re just labeled differently. :)
My special moment was yesterday when my husband fixed a meal for me and let me relax when I wasn’t feeling well.
There’s so many special moments. The ones that touch my heart the most are times when I’m been sick, and he’s there to comfort me.
I agree, so many special moments. The births of our children, and more recently, the care he’s taken of me when I was very sick. 35 years in, and he’s a keeper.
About the romance genre focusing on pre-marriage: it’s a genre convention, and one of the reasons I enjoy writing series. In my Farm Fresh Romances, readers are treated to seeing how some of the earlier couples are faring in later books. Even though the earlier couple isn’t the focus anymore they’re still part of the community, and not everything that happens to them is rosy. They provide an example and offer counsel to the newer relationships.
I love that about series (both writing and reading!) too — it’s definitely a little squeak around the genre conventions. But I have to say, as much as I love the romantic moments in my own marriage, when I want to read something deeply romantic? I crave that pre-marriage romance. If I were to pick up something labeled romance and find that the main characters were already married? I’d be hugely disappointed.
That is an excellent point, Elizabeth. Heather Day Gilbert’s God’s Daughter is one such book that comes to mind. Have any titles that you’d recommend?
Good for him! And you. :)
A good man, for sure! Thanks, Jill.
Thirty-five years, Valerie! That’s pretty cool. I’m stunned that we’re about to hit twenty, so I’m sure thirty-five years will get here quick too.
Love this article. Yes, most romance novels end with the promise of marriage because to me, that’s the end of that particular part of the story. I like reading and writing romance but writing about married couples is, to me, a different story. Not that it isn’t romantic, just a different story. In the series I have coming out the end of the month my first book is about a married couple, the second and third are more romance novels and are about single people. It’s my preferred genre to write in. I think it’s more difficult to write a story about marriage because stories require tension and a question. And I don’t want my story question, when dealing with married couples to be, will they stay together or not? So the tension is reduced. Though, as any married person can attest, there’s always plenty of tension in marriage. Maybe not always the kind of tension people want to read about is all.
I think for me, it’s every anniversary we celebrate together. I still can’t believe after 18yrs I’m married to my real life hero. The one who took care of sick kids in the night, even though he had to work early the next day. The one who let me relax after a long day, even though he put in many hours at work that week. The one who wrote me a sweet note that I found in my Bible the next morning, even though we may have fussed the night before. It’s all an accumulation of little things over the past. I think I can name at least two really special days for both of us: one was my daughter’s high school graduation 5 years ago. It’s a knowing we raised her together, through all the good and bad, and she made it in spite of our mistakes as parents. And two, the day she blessed us with a granddaughter! That one shining moment we knew we’d arrived at the time in our lives that we will treasure, being the best grandparents to that little girl!! I thought my heart was full already, well…I was wrong!! :-)
And now we look forward to our son graduating this year….our last baby, soon to leave the nest like his sister (but not TOO soon), and make his way in the world as a man! What a proud moment that will be for us, another milestone in our marriage that we crossed and another memory to make that we can share together! You’re not kidding when you say you didn’t know what romance was when your first starting dating….it’s nothing like 18yrs down the line (or longer for some)! I wholeheartedly agree with you, Sally! Romance is in all the LITTLE things in life, those shining moments you share together :-)
God’s Daughter is a great choice. Um, I have a women’s fiction trilogy that I think has some good romance in the hard time moments :) Dan Walsh’s books (particularly his Restoration series) are like that, Nightshade by Ronie Kendig is another that I think is good with the married romance aspect (though they’re estranged, so it’s kind of “finding love again”), JoAnn Durgin’s Second Time Around (again, more of a second chance/finding love again, but the main characters are married), Ane Mulligan’s Chapel Springs Revival has several lovely married romance moments and then you have classics like Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.
And I’ll stop. Cause I probably read too much, so asking me for book recommendations is liable to unleash entirely too much info. :)
Ha, love your last line there Carolyn: married tension isn’t the kind people want to read about. True! This is an interesting post with great comments, Sally–thanks!