If all my friends are doing it, do I have to do it to?

My heart has been heavy for a little while now.  I simply can't get my head around what is going on.  It seems all around me I am hearing the word divorce.  Friends, close family, not so close family, friends of friends, everybody is doing it. 

I have watched as people have fallen in love, just plain goofy about each other.  Their lives build together into this wonderful romantic bliss.  Then it happens!  The new wears off, they start really learning about each other.  The things that they once thought were cute are now not only not-so-cute but down right getting on their last nerve.  I hear "If he does that one more time. . .", or "I can't believe she is acting this way. . ."!  All around me peoples lives are falling apart.

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They fell in love in high school, got married as soon as they graduated, had the first child a year later.  They built a life. . . a family.  It wasn't always great, sometimes it wasn't even good, but they worked it out.  People had to have known there were issues.  Yes, they put on a happy face and a nice front when they needed to, but those times passed and it was all good again.  Or, at least people thought it was.  As the kids grew, there was day care, jobs, church, bills. . . then there were second jobs, kids extra curricular activities, school programs, sporting events, scouts, sleep overs, church, family time, vacations, shopping, bills.  This cycle didn't seem to get better it only got worse.  As the jobs became more, the schedules became tighter, the "toys" became more expensive, the need to fill empty places with shopping became greater so did the bills. . . . so did the loneliness. . . .so did the resentment. 
Where did the love go?  Sure it was still there hidden under all that other junk that was taking up their lives, their time, their heart.  But it was too buried to find it.  To buried to pull it out and remember what brought them together in the first place. So it just sat, buried for years and years.  The showing of love became more of a "routine", a robotic motion, words just slipping out as a salutation.  It lost it's meaning somewhere along the way.
Now here they are 40 something years into what used to be a loving marriage, now separated. 

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They met and fell in love almost immediately.  They both filled a place for each other that had been empty a long time.  They partied together, they played together, they found fun in everything they did.  They dreamed, and made those dreams a reality.  They had taken some great vacations together and made so many memories, just the two of them.  They really had it going on.  They were living the life! Then one day they find themselves jobless.  Not so long after that (in the big picture) they find themselves losing their home and possessions they had worked so hard to obtain.  During all of this they are finding themselves losing each other.  The stress getting to them both.  Finding a shoulder to lean on, other than that of their spouse.  Realizing there is resentment, and mistrust.  The love is still there, if you can push all the yuckiness aside for a minute.  Make it work, forgive each other.  Then all of the sudden realizing that in forgiving you didn't forget.  Did you really forgive at all?  Back to the whose doing more than whom.  Who is carrying the load of responsibility.  Keeping score, name calling, yelling, accusations, depression, bitterness, medication, counseling, mental illness. 
It all begins to add up.  What has been sacrificed here.  How many years have been lost.  Now separated, living in two different places, splitting up what is left of what used to be a happy home.  Years and years of togetherness, not alone, afraid, sometimes excited to be starting anew. 

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Kids are grown, they raised three.  To everyone on the outside it looked as if they had it together.  A happy home, lots of friends, three kids whom also had lots of friends.  A great job, also owning a business that just justified spending time on your hobby, not so much a job.  A beautiful old house right in the heart of town.  Things are wonderful right. . . .
Not so much!  He's in rehab, on probation at his job.  Must complete rehab before he can work again.  She's running the home business, having to make excuses for him to friends and family.  He comes home, things get better, gets a new job, does some traveling.  Kids start graduating from college, marriage proposals, new homes for now adult children.  Life is back on track.  All to find that the track has been moved. 
He starts drinking again. . . .
That's when they begin living in two different places and I hear the word divorce.

I have a wonderful marriage.  Do I?  I now begin to question my own reality.  Am I doing the same things as those all around me?  Am I just covering up what is really true.  I love my wife, that I know is true.  I work a lot, she works a lot.  We are working on 19 years here.  I'm not saying it's all been peaches and cream.  It has been hard work.  Some times harder than others.  But isn't that how it is.  Marriage is work, it's not something that just happens and is amazing all the time right? 
I find myself lost in my work, not my job, but the things I do at home that are work.  Not house work, or yard work, but kinda like a second job kind of work, except I don't get paid to do it.  I'm at my desk a lot, in front of a computer a lot.  I make a conscious effort to stop what I'm doing, if not on a strict deadline, and make time for "us".  But the truth is, do I always make that effort? 
She talks all day at work, on the phone, in the office.  People need her, need her attention, need her time.  She listens all day.  Listens to people complain, cry, vent, about their life, problems, illnesses, whatever. 
By the time she gets home there is nothing left.  Then there is her second job, that she mostly does from home.  Where people need her time, her ear, and where she talks and listens. 
I look at all of this and think. . . is this leading us down a path not so unlike those of our friends and family who are losing the loves of their lives right now?  Is this how it begins?  One starts feeling less important than all of those outside obligations.  The other starts feeling lonely and neglected.
I don't want to be those people.  I love my wife with all that is in me.  I love the life we have built.  I believe we have a firm foundation.  Do we hit a rocky road now and then, of course. . . who doesn't.  We have always been able to find out way out.  Our way back to each other, the ones that matter the most at the end of the day.

I can't help but have a slight tinge of fear as I watch the lives of people around me that I know and love fall apart.  I try to take it all in, remembering and evaluating each thing that could have gone wrong in those relationships.  Not wanting it to go wrong in mine.  Trying to make mine more stable, to ensure it can withstand any storm that passes.  Because they will pass.  They will come and they will pass. 
I truly believe in my marriage our love.  I will not allow the fear to linger.  I will take pride in the life we have created.  I will love a little more and a little longer.  And I will pray, pray that my heart will make it through the pain of watching my family and friends as they find their new lives. 

I love you Honey!  (and this really isn't about us. . . .this is about what is happening all around us!)