Three words to describe my marriage

I got an email with the following question: ‘If you were to describe your (former) marriage in three words, what would they be?’

I couldn’t narrow it down to just three.

So I replied with five, off the top of my head.

Five first:

Lonely

Rollercoaster

Dark

Shame

Embarrassment

And then (much later), I thought of three more:

Insanity

Confusion

Disorder

‘But that was in the final years,’ I explained, suddenly realizing it myself. ‘I could write a very different list to represent the first 3 years or so.’

I got a reply: ‘I would love to hear about the first 3 years.’

I didn’t write back because I really had to think about it in order to come up with three words that I really felt captured the essence of the marriage from my perspective in the first 3 years. I had to wade through too much stuff in the basement of my mind.

The words didn’t come to me until very recently.

Three words.

Trusting

Assured

Loyal

There’s some ‘good’ and there’s some ‘bad’ in every marriage.

Our bad simply outweighed our good.