Thoughts about Getting Married

Two days ago a friend complained about the many days of Kansas heat we’ve experienced this year.

“It was 110 degrees the day we got married,” Husband told him. “Of course it didn’t seem that hot to us then.”

What was he talking about? It was hot during that July; it is hot this July.  I admit we were much younger, but 110 degrees still made me sick.

After dinner on the day we got married, we walked across the street to a park next to the river. Suddenly I felt ill and went to the women’s facility. Later I found out he was in the men’s facility being sick, too. I hoped it was nerves and heat and not getting married to me.

In a previous post, I told you our wedding ceremony took place at 10 a.m. on a sunny and potentially hot Saturday.

I planned it that early because I did not want to wait all day to get married.  Besides, I don’t think people would have come out in that tremendous heat just to see us legally united.

“We only invited close family and friends,” I told one of my daughters.

“Why such a small wedding?”

“It was a compromise. I wanted a church wedding; he wanted to elope. I kept my guest list under 20; his mother invited several friends and neighbors. She didn’t ask; she just invited them. Now that I think about it, I shouldn’t have been surprised at her doing so. That is exactly the type of thing she would do. ”

When asked if it made me angry, I had to admit it didn’t really bother me.  I shrugged my shoulders and figured she was so happy to get us married, she wanted to celebrate.

“I think I now understand why he didn’t want a large wedding ceremony.”

“Because it would cost money,” she sneered.

“Well, that was probably part of it. Neither of us had much money, and my parents could not afford a huge wedding for me.  I think it was the planning. He just wanted to get married so we could be together, and he was too impatient to make plans over time. I was, too.”

“ Yes, Dad can be spontaneous such as the incident when he hung your underwear out the window of the Holiday Inn Hotel, downtown Wichita.”

He thought it was the funniest thing he had done that day.  Of course then and other times I laughed at him, and I enforced his totally inappropriate sense of humor that time and all the other times I laughed.

 “Mom, don’t encourage him,” the kids tell me.

I think of that episode and wonder how it was I didn’t connect all his behaviors before we married.

I should have figured something was amiss, right?

The CHADD organization (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) shares a graphical illustration of ADHD which they call the ADD/ADHD Iceberg. Above the water one can see a small protrusion of ice, but below the water there is a huge, hidden portion that is much more dangerous and ominous looking. The idea is easy to catch. Much of the complexities of ADHD are hidden beneath the surface.

“I’m glad I didn’t know about ADD or ADHD when we married. I might not have gone through with the wedding. That would have been a terrible loss and shame. Not only would I not have you three kids, but I would have missed out on many benefits of being married to such a unique person.”

“Do you wish you had guidelines like people now have?”

“Guidelines may have helped us, but we did have the Bible, and those principles served us quite well through all the growing and maturation together.”

I am thankful I married this man and that he is a person with ADHD. I have many advantages being part of a couple with him.