This July 30 marks 20 years of being married to my wife Annie. In truth, we started dating five years earlier, so a quarter century of being with someone is something to take some joy in. We have been blessed with our daughter Aine, who is somewhat an amalgam of our creativity, personalities and obviously DNA. In spite of all of that she is her own person and quickly heading out of childhood into the deep, dark waters of teenager.
Annie’s and my marriage is one that is based on a lot of patience. When it comes to being married to a musician, there’s a lot of patience needed. You not only have limited time due to the nature of traveling for shows, but you also have to share your partner with other people. Those people all have some sort of relationship to your spouse, which can be somewhat stressful. Annie is sort of an introvert, so she naturally shrinks from “Marty the musician” and attending a show. While at home, the need to run the business is as urgent as playing the shows. Trying to balance it all can be precarious at best. Just today, Annie was miffed that my schedule had changed this week. Some shows have moved my touring schedule up by two days. This adjustment has a ripple-effect on everything from shopping for food to getting the repairman in to fix the broken dishwasher. Patience is definitely a virtue.
Likewise, I am patient with Annie. Because she is the opposite of me in many ways, I have to unravel at times what she is truly feeling. I have to decide if she is angry at me or if she is angry at the situation. Either way, I have to be empathetic to her coping with my absence while touring. Or walking around a house, bone-tired and brain dead after touring.
Even though we signed up together for our shared life a long time ago, it takes a lot of love to become that other half of the whole. Both of us make sacrifices. Both of us have to understand what the other can and cannot do. I know, no matter how many months I could be out on the road, the recycling is going to be waiting there for me, even if it is flowing into the kitchen. She knows that I probably will only be good at grilling food at this point in our marriage.
That early love, the starry-eyed love is long gone. We are now in that committed couple's love. The kind of love where sentences are finished for the other, favorite foods are purchased, wines discussed and drank. We haven’t quite made it to the “start to look like your partner love” where despite the best efforts it seems one cannot determine where the one stops and the other starts. I love seeing those couples, who effortlessly move as one, like swans gliding on the lake. And perhaps we may never make it to that love. I don’t know.
Being older than Annie, I feel time. My friends know that I felt the presence of time even when I was 11 years old. That I knew that the moment was all that mattered. With our marriage, it is only more keenly felt with every grey hair or body ache.
She still is that young, beautiful bride to me. Annie is blessed with her Asian DNA, which seems to age slower than us Irishmen. But she is also still young inside. Her optimistic belief in the good of others in the world is what makes her so lovely. She is goodness personified, even when she is angry at me.
The one thing I feel the most urgent in my marriage is that I don’t thank her enough. I should be thanking her every minute really. Thanking her for saying yes to a life with me, saying yes to my being an artist, saying yes to my snoring, my ageing, my own fears and accepting me for who I am. She has been an amazing partner, and I am grateful.
The truth is, being married to such a partner has allowed me to become fully who I am. When she said yes to me, she had no caveat’s, no “but you will change” or unspoken plan for our life together. It’s been uncharted waters from the get-go.
I have been blessed with such a beautiful soul for a quarter century. And I hope we get to that part where we start to look alike.
READ MARTIN’S OTHER BLOG HERE.