He used to make me so annoyed.  He was in charge of changing the kitty litter, and cooking.  I felt like I was in charge of EVERYTHING else: bills, dishes, cleaning, chauffeur.  I complained.  I nagged.  I bitched to my friends about him.  I did it.  I’m guilty.

Now he’s dead.

Widows, we all did it.  Don’t lie.  You nagged.  You complained.  Your husband had the tendency to annoy you!  The best husbands do!  Now, when our friends complain about their husbands, we freak.  Our husbands are dead, and all they can do it bitch about what their husband didn’t do for them.  How selfish they are!

It took me a while to get to the point where it no longer angers me when friends discuss the frustrations of their relationships.  Maybe it’s because I’m in another relationship, and I find myself feeling those annoyances from time to time.  Mostly, it has come from time.  Time to get past the jealousy of my friends marriages, whether good or bad.  I had to work past friends’ relationships that fell apart soon after I lost Kevin.

I needed to accept that no marriage is perfect, that none will be identical to the one I had with Kevin (also imperfect), and that in marriage, you create the situation.  So, while my friends and family all have imperfect marriages, they are part of a union that was made by two people, once and hopefully still, in love.  A marriage that has unique attributes that I may never understand.

While I hope that the end result of Kevin & I’s marriage was an eye opener to my friends and family, no one situation will change anything.  It’s a commitment between two people.  So she can nag, and he can be lazy, or vice versa.  It is the marriage they have created, and I hope it is blessed in all its craziness.