Spring is such a welcome breath of fresh air after a cold and gloomy winter! Easter comes along at just the right time when the buds return to the trees, flowers start to bloom, and the days become more warm and pleasant. I have many fond memories of playing Easter Bunny and hiding colorful eggs and candy behind newly blooming daffodils, in the bushes, and cleverly disguised between rocks in the garden for the kids to find and enjoy. Inevitably, an egg or two is never found during the big hunt, then days later a curious and terrible stench begins to fill the air as forgotten eggs spoil.
If you’ve ever smelled a rotten egg, then you know that the unmistakable Sulphur odor is repulsive beyond compare!
Knowing that my children will hunt for eggs and treats this weekend made me consider things that are hidden and sometimes discovered, other times missed during a marriage, and how those “rotten eggs” within a relationship can begin to spoil a good thing.
Did you miss any of these eggs during your marriage?
I definitely missed the egg that represented my ex and I marrying way too quickly before we really knew each other well enough to determine how compatible we were. Well, we weren’t! We could have successfully dated for a little while, but if we had been exercising any common sense, we certainly wouldn’t have jumped so soon into marriage. We didn’t have enough in common or a deep enough connection!
I must have seen the egg out of the corner of my eye about our differing religious beliefs. I mean, I knew this one was there, and I stupidly chose to ignore it, thinking that I could do my thing, he could do his, and it wouldn’t contribute to any substantial problems between us. The problem is that religion is a core personal belief, and it’s kind of important to be on the same page with one’s spouse!
Perhaps I was blindfolded during my courtship and marriage? I’m shaking my head that I was so (voluntarily) oblivious to the gigantic neon egg of his family dynamics. I should have run out the door as soon as I detected an overbearing mother and mama’s boy tendencies in my ex. I was fully aware of how dysfunctional his parent’s relationship was, and should’ve taken more seriously the fact that these are the people he learned how to be in a marriage from! Plus, wow! If you’ve never had a mother-in-law try to control how everyone within an entire family system lives their life, you’re in for a treat!
The egg of sexual issues was sure a curious one, once finally discovered! Not only did this little treasure contain porn addiction, but some seriously alternative sexual needs of his that sure would have been nice to know about before putting a ring on it! Let’s just say that I was not born with the proper equipment to fulfill his needs, and it was really unfair not to have this bit of information disclosed up front so that I could make an informed decision about our relationship!
I did nearly trip over the egg of financial responsibility, but not until our funds had been spent on idiotic things like 4-wheelers and over 800 DVD’s for his movie collection when we had other little things like medical bills for our special needs son to attend to! What a mess to try to help a fellow adult come to realize the necessity for priorities- you know, the needs of kids and food on the table come before board games and a new air compressor!
I wouldn’t have thought I would be hunting for a hygiene and appearance egg while we were dating, but by about three years into marriage I could barely recognize my ex as the same person! Once well-groomed, smelling nice of cologne, and making an effort to wear something appealing, he stopped shaving, rarely got a haircut (so usually wore a ball cap with a hairstyle I would compare to Krusty the Clown), and regularly commented that he couldn’t remember if he had brushed his teeth that day or not. Come to mama!
There were more; but, there’s only so many rotten eggs one can stand in their back yard at one time! Any of us can have, or even be responsible for, an unpleasant hidden surprise that has a negative impact on a marriage. Any marriage might be able to withstand one or two of these eggs at any given time, just depending on the nature of the beast and how capable the partners are of dealing with those issues.
We certainly should try to rely on communication to work through any unexpected developments. Better yet, partners should be honest and up front from the beginning so as not to spring any shocks onto their partner that might become a deal breaker down the road. Ideally, we should be able to count on “what you see is what you get” instead of our mate holding out on some very important details.
Avoiding or preventing spoilage from completely new and unexpected revelations may be about impossible to achieve. When we discover rotten eggs in our garden, we are faced with big decisions to either ask “what the heck is this and what are we going to do about it?” or to simply chuck the whole basket. I’m still not sure how I will handle myself in the future when something completely unforeseen emerges from the shrubbery; however, experience with enough rotten eggs has made me a lot wiser about noticing red flags so that I can keep myself from stumbling into bad situations.
Once you smell a bad egg, you certainly don’t want to relive the experience! In this way, a negative experience will serve to make you a little wiser, if not more wary. Just watch where you step, try not to be the one hiding the bad eggs, and run if you smell something bad!
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