Design & Decorate

Thoughts On Marriage (+ Happy Birthday And Anniversary Brian)

October 9, 2023

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Yesterday was Brian’s birthday, two weeks ago was our wedding anniversary and I realized it had been a while since I dished on how life with this guy is going. It’s not really anyone’s business, and yet I find myself with stuff to say and a place to say it so here we go. Recently I heard this concept of “multiple marriages” within the same long-term monogamous relationship and all the bells went off – “how true,” I thought. When you hear about people being together for 23 + years (us) when you are really young, one might wonder if it gets boring and monotonous. Do you get sick of each other? Does it just get stale and like you are going through the motions? Is it even possible to retain attraction? And while I know that it can and often does fade away (or simply isn’t the right long-term healthy fit), there’s also a version where the decades-long relationship morphs and changes so much that years of a marriage feels totally different – dare I say even new and fresh (at times). You think that the initial falling in love will be the most fun part (and it is VERY fun), but the years of ups and downs after are certainly more interesting and dynamic. This is the case for us.

The Falling In Love And Life Before Kids

Brian and I are in our 3rd decade together, with two kids, almost 8 and 10, and it does feel like through the highs and lows we’ve had three or four totally different marriages. Let’s recap: We fell in love in college (for me almost immediately, took more time with him). Our twenties were so fun – graduating from U of O together, moving to New York (Hope! Excitement!), and breaking up so someone could grow up a bit. Our careers grew – Brian graduated from NYU grad school, performed on Broadway (amongst so many other roles) and I launched my freelance styling career. It ended with a splendidly happy wedding where the whole room believed we could make it.

Our 30s – WHAT’S NEXT AND HOW DO WE DO THIS

We were solid. Solid enough to move to LA and pursue the unknown in a rather tricky city full of unquenchable ambition. Our thirties started with a real slump (2008 recession + writers strike) and our careers went in two different directions which was very challenging for our relationship. I remember the night after I won DesignStar a producer said, “Just so you know, you’ll need a marriage counselor”. Ha. “Nope! Not us!,” I thought. We almost didn’t make it and got caught up in a resentment and neglect cycle despite also really still liking each other (which can be confusing, like he’s still my best friend but we were so off and felt very disconnected). We both knew we were in TROUBLE and yet we wanted kids soon. So we enacted “extreme marriage makeover 2012” where we decided to give it a real effort and lo and behold it worked (therapy, which he wrote about here was a huge driver of this success). AND THANK GOD. I did NOT like that version of our marriage, but it gave us tools.

The First Baby Bubble

Our first baby (and our first home in Glendale) brought us into this incredible little bubble and we were BACK! Co-parenting with Brian has (almost) always been easy and has come naturally, thank god. My first Target contract gave us financial stability that we had never had (not even with a TV show). Life with a baby was so fun. Not perfect, but pretty great.

But that precious bubble didn’t last. With two kids under two with my career being almost unmanageably demanding and stressful (and fun, but insert the invention of social media), I neglected “us,” which wasn’t even a surprise at the time. It felt impossible and I felt like I was drowning. Mix in some circumstantial depression that comes with being in your 30s and unsure where life is headed and things got challenging again. We had more tools this time (thanks to therapy) and two kids to think about, so it didn’t break us but we simply didn’t have a lot of emotional bandwidth for each other. All our energy went to the kids, my job, and then his shift back into theater (which was the key to getting out of his said depression, you can not keep creativity locked inside – FULL STOP). In those years we were totally fine, mostly good and our day-to-day was as best as we thought it could be, but now I can see we were more surviving than thriving. Maybe that’s just life for all parents with little kids. Who knows.

Then…LOCKDOWN

Then lockdown happened, and despite the extreme awfulness of it all, it brought us so much clarity and closeness. Brian and I realized how much we really liked being with each other and our kids (thus the extreme life change). The pressure lifted off both of us to be some bigger/better version that we thought the world wanted us to be (spoiler – it’s all in our heads). External expectations on life plummeted and this sense of calm moved in. Our kids became best friends (with no one else to play with) and Brian and I totally reignited our relationship. And then coming out of it, despite dips in my own stuff (reemerging was hard for me, and grappling with external pressures might be my consistent battle). But the clarity that we had during that time remains constant. Moving to Portland has been so good for us, our kids getting older/easier has been so fun for all of us, and we have entered this fresh stage that I don’t want to ever end (and yet I know it might/will).

Over the years there have been times in our marriage where he and I have felt more like buddies, siblings and coworkers, for sure. So many date nights full of us just talking about house logistics and kid coordination (we have a rule about that now). But right now I feel so lucky to have made it through those versions of marriage because THIS Brian Henderson, this iteration of the man I fell in love with 23 years ago, is HANDS DOWN MY FAVORITE. If you don’t like hearing about someone else’s supportive husband/dad then stop reading, but it’s his birthday so I’m going to gush about him a lot right now. He remains so funny, creative, interesting, extremely handsome and so smart and insightful. We can still talk for hours (given the time that we have to prioritize). I legit enjoy hanging out with him so much. He coaches Charlie’s basketball, sets up a homework station in the “Alpasture” in the afternoons, and is trying to be active in the PTA and PTO at our school. He is getting his masters in creative writing, is so dedicated to the book is he writing, and still makes time to be the lead parent with our kids setting such an incredible example for both of them. Sure, it took us years to figure out how to make our mutually supportive roles work in a way that feels fair and fulfilling for both of us, without resentments – it didn’t happen overnight. And listen, those patterns/issues still rear their head (and will likely forever), but now we see them coming earlier and we have healthier ways to work through them causing less damage. It’s so easy for a marriage to fall apart – slowly then all at once, so we are watching it like a hawk because the kids will be out of the house in 10 years and then it’s just US and we hope to really still like each other. That will be a whole new marriage in and of itself that I’m not ready to even think about (and yet still sounds strangely exciting).

One last thought – A few weeks ago I had this massive shoot here at our house – three days of 20+ people staring at me all day as I extroverted hard and performed the best version of my designer/blogger self. It went really well and was so fulfilling. But afterward, all I wanted was him – almost like an existential need. He is this rock that is both so solid and so soft, and while I’m sure it’s hard to see your wife get so much attention at times (especially as a performer himself), he was so supportive. He’s known my insides since before all of this, since we were 21. At times we were worried we met too young, and now we realize it can be such a gift. He is both the scaffolding and the antidote through all the highs and lows in my own life. It’s probably why our kids are obsessed with him, too – this solid and soft combo that he has. Everybody loves Brian Henderson and while I hope he knows it, today is the day he is going to hear it from me.

Part of me wondered why post this. Why not just write him a letter and keep such personal things private – you know, like a normal person? But I suppose I would love to hear this from someone else. I guess my hope in writing this is that A. Brian feels so loved and admired as he should, and B. For those of you in a rough spot in your marriage or maybe just starting out, our first-hand experience is that decades of being together inevitably produce different marriages – some almost unbearably hard and others refreshingly romantic. Nothing is like the original falling in love, but the bond, the partnership, the connection of all our insides, the support, the interdependence, the shared knowing glances, the inside jokes, the made-up words/languages, and the sense of this TEAM doing life together is so much better than getting than those initial butterflies.

After we got married (at 27) I used to say that the happiest and saddest thing about getting married is that IF you are lucky you’ll never get to fall in love again. Little did I know how much deeper you can fall. Happy Birthday (and anniversary), my love. xx