I was reading Jessica a book she had checked out from the library over the weekend. It was a fun book, and one that I felt uniquely suited to reading her. The title was "Stinky, Smelly Feet". As I read it, though, I came to a realization.
I have stinky, smelly feet. So does my wife. And I bet every one of us here does as well.
In fact I am positive that every one of us has stinky, smelly feet. In the story, the protagonist is a duck with a problem. Every time he takes his shoes off around his girlfriend she passes out. The odor is too much. He scrubs, he powders, he perfumes, but to no avail. They think perhaps it is is shoes, so they toss them out. They think things are all taken care of.
But no, he still has stinky, smelly feet. And in the end, he and his girlfriend are still together, because she loves him. She is willing to overlook his odoriferous issues because she realizes they are more important than his toe odor.
How many times do we forget to do the same? I know I have. Perhaps my stinky, smelly feet are in the form of some annoying habit I have, some idiosyncrasy that tries to drive my wife nuts. And so she has a choice. What is more important, me or my feet? And I do the same with her. Whatever the form of her stinky, smelly feet may be, I have the choice to overlook that and embrace her, feet and all, or let some negligible issue get in the way of our happiness.
So what do you choose?
Certainly there are issues that are significant enough they deserve more attention. But every time I hear how high the divorce rate is in the US I am stunned. I do not believe it is possible for half of the married folks in the US to have problems so grave that the best solution is the dissolution of a family. I think that in many (though certainly not all) of those cases one partner, or both, simply let the stinky, smelly feet get the better of them. They allowed their pride to convince them that they deserved more, that they had grown apart, that they had fallen out of love.
Well let me tell you something folks, real love isn't something you fall into or out of. It is something you seek, work for, and then continue to work at. Lust? You bet, folks fall in and out of lust every day (some poor walking hormones probably multiple times a day). But real love involves choosing to work past the stinky, smelly feet, to see each other for what we are, and then be willing to see each other for more than what we are. It is the willingness to see each other, and see what we two may become together.
What do I know though, I have only been married for 6 years and change. But I know this has worked well for us so far.