Relationships are hard. That’s a shocking revelation, right? They take work and dedication and tremendous amounts of patience, every day. There’s never a break. Most times, I’m happy to say things with Hubby click. But on occasion, the edges fray a little and bickering ensues. Chalk that one up to two stubborn Type As, lack of sleep and a gaggle of loud and whiny kids incessantly haunting us to play Super Mario 3-D World. ARGH!!!!
Suffice to say, we’ve moved well-beyond the honeymoon.
Makes me think of a scene from Just Married. Ashton Kutcher’s character Tom and his newlywed wife are on the brink of divorce after a horrific honeymoon in Europe. He’s thumbing through a photo album with his dad, noting how happy his parents were in the pictures. His dad reminds him that nobody photographs the difficult days and challenges. You can’t see the issues or aggravation that bridge you from one happy moment to the next. But they’re always lurking in the background. Some days are easy and calm and on other days it takes a heck of a lot more to get through, and you do it with a forced smile and clenched fists. You put the effort in to catapult you to the next happy moment because it’s SO WORTH IT.
That’s one of the reasons why I love to write romance. Although the relationships are greatly abbreviated in a book, there are still ups and downs (normally much more dramatic than real life since I have to appeal to a reader audience and who the hell really wants to read about my day to day?). But THE most fun part is always crafting the realization of why a couple chooses to be together, highlighting the forces that drive them to one another no matter what the obstacles, and the reasons why they are absolutely perfect as a unit.
I’ve been happily married for almost 14 years and I love that our story is already written, edited and published. It provides me with all the inspiration I need to breathe life into my fictional world.