No marriage is perfect or easy. In fact, anything good in my life hasn’t come easy. It has taken work and sacrifice. Believe me when I say that my marriage isn’t easy! And so far I have shared a lot about how wonderful my marriage is which is true, but we are just as screwed up as everyone else. We mess up daily, but over the years it has gotten a little easier. Those first few years are really hard, and we are coming around!
Because I have shared so much of the good stuff I wanted to share this little fight Ryan and I had a few years ago. It was small, but it kind of sums up our day-to-day life struggle.
Her side:
I have been buying Cheerios for years. Honey Nut Cheerios in the brown, gold, yellow box that is clear as day honey nut flavored. It is my favorite and then it became Gracie’s favorite. She was about 3 and I was pregnant with Eli. We woke up on a Sunday morning and I realized we didn’t have cereal for Gracie and she was going through a phase where she wanted only cereal (Honey nut cheerios) or she wouldn’t eat. I knew this would be a huge fight and we needed to get to church on time. Ryan offered to go to the store and get a few things, so I told him to grab some Cheerios. After getting myself and Gracie ready I head downstairs to make breakfast and wouldn’t you know there was a giant bright yellow box of P L A I N cheerios. This box was huge. And plain. No honey nut to speak of. We had been married about 6 years at this point, and a few things ran through my head. One, oh boy here we go. My morning just got more difficult, and two, really? Has he ever seen this thing in our house before? Why would I randomly have him buy something we never eat? Why doesn’t he ever pay attention! Do I really have to explain everything tiny detail. Apparently yes, yes I do.
So this led into a “I can’t believe you bought the wrong flavor of cheerios,” to “You never pay attention to me or anything that I do,” to “Why do I have to do everything around here!!” ordeal. You know how it goes. We made it to church though!
His Side:
It was a sunday morning when the fight happened. The devil was hard at work attempting to send us to church mad at each other. Dani and I were both generally reluctant to wake up early, since we needed our precious sleep. But we still planned to attend church. Our normal sunday morning routine during these days was that Dani would shower and I would feed Grace breakfast. Then I would shower once Grace was fed. Eli was not born yet. This routine generally worked pretty well for us before heading to church. On this Sunday morning, Dani and I realized that we had run out of Cheerios to feed Grace. So I offered to run to the grocery store so that we could feed Grace what she normally eats. I thought it would help us out since this was not one of those battles we intended to pick with our 3-year old daughter. If you have a 3-year old then you know what I’m talking about. When I go to the grocery store to get things, I always ask if Dani needs anything else. She said no, just cheerios. So off I ran to food lion. I grabbed a box of cheerios and returned home. I did this as fast as I could since we were supposed to be leaving for church very soon. Upon my return home, I was welcomed with the comment “Ryan you got the wrong kind of cheerios.” Picture those words being spoken with frustration and anger. I responded with “You told me to get cheerios and I got cheerios.” Come to find out that i had purchased plain cheerios instead of honey nut cheerios. Honey nut cheerios is what Grace was most accustomed to eating and I had gotten plain cheerios. Thus ensued the cheerios fight where Dani and I went back and forth. Dani would talk about how important it was that the right kind of cheerios are used. I would say things like “then you should have specified which kind of cheerios to purchase.” To which she would respond “well I always buy honey nut cheerios, you should have known.” I’ll spare you the remaining details…well actually that’s probably the bulk of it from my perspective. I learned a lot from that conversation and I understand Dani’s rationale for why she got so upset, but I think it could have been handled differently. I think we both learned a lot from this fight and we have no problems looking back and laughing about how silly of a fight it really was. It’s been referenced a few times to our connect group. But on the bright side, we fought all the way to church and then made sure to put on that big wide smile once we walked in the doors so no one would know what happened. Yes we know there are issues with that last statement, but that’s for another blog post. That’s my side.
You can decide for yourself who won this one ; )
