Marriage is not 50/50. 

I heard a Bible teacher one time talk about how marriage was 100/100, meaning that both people had to be all-in.  While kitschy and likely true in concept, the idea falls short in reality.

The reality is that marriage is dynamic and messy.  The reality is that as individuals, we change. Marriages and individuals go through seasons. 

We had our pre-baby season, which was characterized by failed attempts at cooking family favorites and fighting over little things while we forged our own way, sorting out what 'leave and cleave' really meant.

We had the pregnancy season, driven by fear of how a nurse might explain the latest alarm on the litany of monitors.

Then there was the feed-poo-clean-repeat season, responding to the needs of everything but the marriage.

The 'there's something wrong and it doesn't look good' season was really hard.  I was the one in the hospital bed this time.

I particularly hated the 'under-appreciated, underpaid, overworked' season at the office, where the day's pent up vitriol leaked all over my dinner table each evening.

One particularly tough season held a combination of high-pressure work, radioactive goo, pneumonia, a funeral, birthday t-shirts and a Peking Duck Christmas.  A great story on this side, but chaos in the middle.

Sprinkled throughout these season were broken bones, ER visits, flat tires, company separations and a chemically imbalanced dog. 

Yet time also brought vacations with friends, trans-continental adventures, books written, initiations into manhood and lots of firesides.

Marriage is not 50/50.

We developed a pattern early where we each had our role in the laundry and groceries and such (50/50).  But then kids came and her ability to nourish them shifted our patterns (90/10), which held until I had to travel for work (10/90).  When they put me on the table to biopsy some part of me that was designed to stay in tact, the balance shifted (5/95), until they put the radioactive goo in her (95/5). 

I could go on, but here's the fallacy: marriage is not 50/50 because life doesn't always add up to 100. 

The reality is that when they put radioactive goo in her to test some theory, I was carrying a heavier load of our life, but if I'm generous, we were 10/50 or 60% all-in.  Neither of us had much to give, so we called in the troops and grandma called the special line she has to Santa Claus and pulled off Christmas.  The reality is that in seasons of great distress at work, I needed to offload onto a buddy who understood the nuances of my work and didn't share my dinner table (40/30). 

There are times where our collective best simply isn't enough; times where we don't have any more to give the other person.  There are times where 'in sickness and in health, with all that I am' may not be much because it's all I have to give.

This season quarantined at home, without our community to help make up the difference between what we have and what we need has been really hard if I'm honest.  There was one night where my bride and I passed one another on the way to bed, simply surviving.  And we did.  We did survive to rest until one of us had an ounce to give the other person, which was freely given.

But this too is a season. 

We will survive this season, just like we have when each of us has been on the hospital table or even worse, when our kids were on the table.

We will manage this season because our commitment is 'all that I am,' regardless of how much that is.

We will live well in this season because it's not the first (or last) time in a down moment. 

We will thrive in this season because we've mutually committed all that we have.

We'll also stop counting because that kind of math is bad for relationships.