Author’s note: I wrote this post about six months after we were married. The facts are true, and my handsome husband is still wonderful.

First let me say, I love being married!! It is so much fun to have such a wonderful husband to do things with, discuss things with, not to mention having my best friend to share every aspect of my life with.

I’ve always known I would be the perfect wife. I was going to be the June Clever of St. Joseph, MO (minus the heels and pearls). Cooking, cleaning, laundry, always having a meal on the table when my husband walked through the door… It was going to be my gift to my husband to be the perfect wife in his perfect home and to always have my hair done. And I was…for the first month of marriage.

What I had not anticipated in that perfect scenario was how tired I would be after a long day of work. I also had not figured in the difficulty of finding time to be with my husband, who was going to school full time and working part time, since I got off work at five and he went to work at six. Most evenings I would race home, snarf down my dinner with Read, send him off to work, and spend the next four hours while he was at work furiously unpacking, cleaning, and cooking for the next evening. Then when Read got home at ten, we would spend an hour or two together talking about our day and unwinding.

This schedule was working just fine until my body shut down. Apparently my human body cannot survive on five or six hours of sleep every night while working full time and being the June Clever of St. Joseph, MO. I remember getting up on a Friday morning and feeling chilled. It was a cool day and I attributed it to the temperature outside.

That chill turned into a fever, sore throat, and flu symptoms. After seeing three doctors and taking almost three weeks off work, we finally found out I had Strep throat and Mono. I couldn’t cook, do dishes, do laundry, or do my hair. I was so weak, I couldn’t even walk around the house. Read took time off work to stay home with me and carry me around the house when necessary. It was humbling. Read took care of everything I couldn’t do and never complained. He cheerfully cleaned all the bathrooms and took over the cooking, dishes, and laundry.

Now, almost six months later, I still get tired easily and have to watch how much I do and get plenty of sleep each night. Read still takes care of doing some of the chores around the house when he has time. I’ve come to appreciate the little things in life. I appreciate being able to run up and down my own stairs without having to stop and rest at the bottom. I appreciate spending a day at work and not having to come home and go right to bed because I’m so tired. I appreciate being able to take a short walk. I appreciate being able to do things around my house.

Life is wonderful, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m madly in love with my husband, and I focus on spending quality time with him instead of being the perfect wife and house keeper. I’ve learned that having a happy home has very little to do with how clean your house is and a lot more to do with the harmony of a home and my husband having a happy, healthy wife.