A Deep, Dark Secret

I've been with my husband for nearly 12 years. We've been married nearly 10.
I'm going to let you all in on a deep, dark secret.
Two, actually.
I didn't want to marry my husband.
And.
The first SIX YEARS of my nearly 10 year marriage were a nightmare, for both of us.
Let's deal with the first secret first.
We didn't want to be married.
We loved each other. We had a 3 month old together. But...
I didn't want to marry him. He didn't want to marry me either.
We got married at a Court House in Marble Falls, Texas, because his parents made us.
Boom. There ya have it.
Would I have married him eventually? I don't know. I like to think so, because now that we're on the other side of that nightmare bridge, our marriage is strong and good and I love being married.
I thank God every day that when the Justice of the Peace asked us "do you...?" that neither one of us went running for their lives.
I think, that because neither one of us was truly READY for a marriage and all that it brought with it, we were woefully unprepared for all the stuff that comes after.
We both did extremely stupid, hurtful things.
We had some marathon fights, and I'm sure that our daughter heard things she shouldn't have. That's something my husband and I are going to have to live with the rest of our lives.
Marriage was a nightmare. I wanted out. I said as much.
Because neither one of us had wanted to get married in the first place, I figured that he'd give me an out.
Instead, he got sober and begged me to stay. Wait, what?
In 2012, right after I made the tentative decision to stay, I was in a car crash. I called my husband from the hospital and said something along the lines of, "Hey, I was in a wreck. My arm's kind of messed up, but they'll fix it."
My arm was more than "kind of messed up" and I ended up having to go about an hour away to have surgery. I made a brief stop at my husband's workplace to let him know I was headed to another hospital. His eyes got as big as saucers and he said, "Why didn't you tell me it was this bad? I've been worried out of my mind about you! Don't you know how much I love you?!"
And I didn't.
Up until that point.
Because all I had seen up until that point were the fights, and the hurt and the disappointment. I failed to see my marriage transforming.
I've been married for nearly ten years now.
I'm going to let you guys in on another secret.
I'm grateful that I got married because we "had to."
I'm grateful for those nightmare years, because now I appreciate what we have that much more.