Suffice it to say, WE WERE KIDS!
Babies!!
Just wee lil ones!
At just 19 and 21, we had no clue what we were getting into.
It was just a few weeks into marriage and what do you think happened? Well, we got into our first fight. One of the sayings I have coined in our 21 years of marriage is:
We FIGHT HARD.
But we will ALWAYS CHOOSE TO LOVE HARDER.
And fight we did. We fought that day over, who knows what now. But at that time it obviously felt like a hill we both were willing to die on. Looking back, I know I was hard headed. And he, my equal. So, there we were fighting in our one bedroom tiny apartment in Columbia. I remember it all pretty well still actually, even near 21 years later. He looked me square in the eyes and said, and I quote, “You say ONE MORE WORD and I’M LEAVING!” My ridiculously goofy, young and immature 19-year-old self boldly and unashamedly declared, and I quote, “WORD!”
I was giggling in my head and he promptly turned and walked
Right
Out
Our kitchen door!
I learned one very true thing about Sean that day.
He is a man of his W O R D. (lol my goofy self inserts pun intended there 🤪)
But literally, I did learn something about Sean that day. And… I was TERRIFIED!! I was terrified he didn’t just walk away but that our marriage was now over and that he like actually LEFT. So I decided I would go outside and see if I could find him. Maybe he was just on our porch waiting for me to come get him? Maybe he was just pacing our street? But to my even further dismay and fear, when I got outside he was NOWHERE to be seen! And, his car was still there, but that meant he went far and fast on foot already! How could our little fight have escalated so quickly? I was scared and devastated, so I quickly did the only thing I could think of next. I called one of his best men and while crying I asked him if he’d heard from Sean and where he might be!! And as I’m sitting on our front porch on the phone crying…I finally see Sean. In his car, in the drivers seat, “sleeping”. Or at the very least, very unbothered and resting 😳🤪☹️😆 as our kids would say to something like that… TRUE STORY BRUH!
I still look back on our first fight story and laugh! What a story to tell! But it’s such a vivid reminder of what our immaturity and selfishness can do in marital disagreements. Without fighting fair or with maturity, it is so easy to circle back into our same old fight patterns!! It reminds me actually of a time we were also fighting not too long ago- maybe a few years ago - and we were in our car and being in the front seats side by side we somehow got to a quiet moment and both bent down into the center consul and bopped heads so bad!! Yet all we could do is look at each other and just start laughing. We’d been so angry and each other that all we could do is insist on our own way. We were quite literally both being super HARD HEADED (And God gets the credit for the pun intended on this one 🤪) We both say that it was almost like God looked down on us so dumbfounded at our continued immaturity and selfishness and just put his hands on our heads and purposefully bumped us together so we’d shut up and wise up!
If only God would do that with all our dumb moments. If only He’d knock some sense into us without the concussion 🤪 Really though. Why does it have to sometimes take so much for us to calm ourselves down and just listen or just forgo our own way to soften the situation or see things differently?
I’m thankful that though we do still fight and argue, God has taught us many lessons along the way and we are still two very independent thinkers with opinions that sometimes still do not align. Yet we have gained a lot of maturity and confidence and humility along the way—while still having much to continue gaining too!!
We are a work in progress! The motto remains the same:
We FIGHT HARD.
But we will ALWAYS CHOOSE TO LOVE HARDER.
Thanks be to God!!
Hope you enjoyed the story! And hope you too can adopt the motto for your own marriage! Tune in tomorrow for another one :)
-Abi
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