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Valentine's Day is either a very special day for someone or a very bitter and sad day.
For me, it is always 4 days after my Anniversary, so I don't give it a whole lot of thought. But, I do my anniversary...it is a very special day to me. This year I gave Larry the lyrics from Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years" because it says so much of how I feel about him and our life together of 33+ years! One part goes like this:
And all along I believed I would find you,
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a Thousand years
I'll love you for a Thousand more!
Sometimes, you have to do silly, little, romantic things like this to keep your marriage going.........especially when you have a child with special needs in your life!
Last weekend we attended our annual Marriage Retreat with the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City. It is a beautiful weekend at the Crowne Plaza Hotel with other couples going through many of the same things we are.
There were a lot of young couples this year. I listened to them and I could feel the tension in their marriage. Not because they didn't love each other anymore, but because sometimes having a child with special needs can be exhausting, frustrating and extremely worrisome. You become overwhelmed because you have never been educated in the "world of Down Syndrome". You feel lost and very alone, but so does your partner. It is not a one-sided deal, it is something you have to face together, communicate about and become a team with. Most of all, you have got to share your feelings. Keeping them bottled up inside only causes more frustration and more stress.
A major key to all of this is acceptance! When someone is given the diagnosis of cancer, you don't turn away from them, you pitch in and help them deal with it. It is the same thing when you are told your child has down syndrome. You learn about it day by day, challenge by challenge.
You will experience sadness, denial, anger, gear, guilt and shock. But if you do not take the time to deal with this together, as a couple, then you will always be lost. There will be a wall that is slowly built between you that you can't knock down.
Valentine's Day is either a very special day for someone or a very bitter and sad day.
For me, it is always 4 days after my Anniversary, so I don't give it a whole lot of thought. But, I do my anniversary...it is a very special day to me. This year I gave Larry the lyrics from Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years" because it says so much of how I feel about him and our life together of 33+ years! One part goes like this:
And all along I believed I would find you,
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a Thousand years
I'll love you for a Thousand more!
Sometimes, you have to do silly, little, romantic things like this to keep your marriage going.........especially when you have a child with special needs in your life!
Last weekend we attended our annual Marriage Retreat with the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City. It is a beautiful weekend at the Crowne Plaza Hotel with other couples going through many of the same things we are.
There were a lot of young couples this year. I listened to them and I could feel the tension in their marriage. Not because they didn't love each other anymore, but because sometimes having a child with special needs can be exhausting, frustrating and extremely worrisome. You become overwhelmed because you have never been educated in the "world of Down Syndrome". You feel lost and very alone, but so does your partner. It is not a one-sided deal, it is something you have to face together, communicate about and become a team with. Most of all, you have got to share your feelings. Keeping them bottled up inside only causes more frustration and more stress.
A major key to all of this is acceptance! When someone is given the diagnosis of cancer, you don't turn away from them, you pitch in and help them deal with it. It is the same thing when you are told your child has down syndrome. You learn about it day by day, challenge by challenge.
You will experience sadness, denial, anger, gear, guilt and shock. But if you do not take the time to deal with this together, as a couple, then you will always be lost. There will be a wall that is slowly built between you that you can't knock down.
