Love is a Social (Media) Disease

I'm going to start this post with a confession:

I don't have anywhere close to the perfect marriage.

Now, if you're married, you're probably thinking "that's not much of a secret. No one has the perfect marriage." If you're not married, please allow me to disabuse you of the notion that you will EVER have the perfect marriage/relationship. Ain't gonna happen.

One of my favorite pictures of us Summer 2011

The Husband and I have personalities that are as ridiculously similar as they are different. He's confrontational for fun; I'm confrontational only if I am absolutely forced to be. He would rather stay home and avoid all contact with the outside world; I enjoy spending time with other people and socializing from time to time. We're both incredibly stubborn and prepared to fight tooth and nail to get our way if we feel we're in the right. We are both emotionally distant, though we each manifest that distance in different ways.

I can say without a doubt that, though I was in love before The Husband, it was nothing even close to what I feel for him. It's more than a pop song or Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem. It absolutely terrifies me on a regular basis. Some of the terror with regards to my feelings for The Husband has subsided with the birth of BabyA since I'm now also terrified of the depth of my love for her.

Maybe if I have enough children, I'll eventually do away with any fear I have in loving The Husband.

This post was not supposed to be about my fear of deep feelings, though, so allow me to get back on track.

I sometimes feel like social media is one of the worst barriers to a healthy relationship. The Husband is not a social media person. He has a deactivated Facebook account under a false name and a Twitter handle that has never been used. He created both during the early part of our relationship because he wanted to know what I was saying about him on social media. He really hates it when I talk about him.

Meanwhile, I get to see only the good parts of every relationship of every virtual friend I have. I can see every post that showcases husbands and significant others doing all of the things that I wish The Husband would do. People flaunt their supposed perfection in my face while I'm contemplating homicide because I can't physically lift the trash bag full of trash that I asked The Husband to take out...a week ago. I see husbands who do laundry and cook. I see husbands who do a lot of things that The Husband will not do (and husbands who do not do a lot of things The Husband does). 

Instead of just scrolling on, though, I start to compare. Instead of remembering that I am only seeing the perfect part of the relatinoship in question, I start to get irritated that I'm over here trying to drag a 50 lb bag of trash to the can while making sure my toddler stays out of the street and dealing with severe back and pelvic pain. 

I can usually find my way back to contentment if I give myself some time to cool off and pray, but most of the time I am perfectly happy to grumble to myself about all of the things that The Husband does/does not do that irritate me. Because I am perfect, of course, and I never do anything that would irritate him. (In case you missed it, there was an eyeroll implied there).

The reality is that I know that the relationship snippets I see aren't the whole story. I know that every relationship has issues. And I know that every individual is a work in progress and all I can do is trust God to know what He's doing in our lives. I know.

But, in the meantime, know that if I suddenly delete my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, it's because I saw your "my hubby is the best ever" mushy status update/photo/tweet one too many times.