Adjustments

My new life has begun :)  I anticipated happily ever after from the start.  For the first time, I did it right.  I married a man who reads his scriptures daily, reminds us to have family prayer, and never forgets his personal prayers every night.  A man who loves the Lord, loves me, loves our family, and wants to do whats right.  But.... it wasn't happily ever after from the start.  It was a power struggle from day one.  Both of us having been single for a while, him almost 3 years and me a year and a half, with him living the bachelor life for two weeks and stay at home daddy for two weeks, spending his money where he pleased (Basin Sports for hunting stuff.... like hundreds maybe thousands of dollars.  For reals) and me living the typical single mother of 3 life, working one job 4 days a week, another 7 days.  They weren't the hardest jobs, but they were an emotional strain and several days a week I wasn't home until 6 p.m.  I was dancing and partying on weekends, attached to an on-call phone every day and the clubhouse every night, and spending my money on my children but allowing myself the luxuries of shopping, manicures, and chocolate when I needed "therapy".
Suddenly I am a stay at home mother of six two weeks out of the month and a stay at home mother of one the other two weeks of the month.  I have my sisters children 4 days of the week... so I am surrounded by kids... which is fine.  But I have a man here and we both are used to having our way.  It's hard for me to be the wife and mommy and give up the dancing, the manicures, the new heels every month and the freedom of doing what I want when I want.  So yesterday I decided I won't.  We've had tension because I've felt like I must be the martyr, giving up the things I want because I now have responsibilities as a wife and mother and my identity was changing, I was no longer independent Amber, mother of three, wife of none but not unwanted, owner of everything I wanted from men, ruler of my own house and my own life.  I realize now I don't have to lose myself in this man who loves me.  He doesn't expect me to become what he wants, because he fell in love with me, with who I am and not with who he wants me to be.  He wants me to be me and I will be just that.  I can't go back to the wife and homeschool mother I was in my last marriage, because it was never me.  I just thought it was.
And now, since I've decided to be me, to spend the time and money I need to keep up my high maintenance life, we are happy :-)  I am happy and because I am happy he is happy because he loves me and thats what he wants, is happiness. 

I love him so much, I love who he is, what he stands for, what he believes and what he has planned for us and for eternity.  So, I've been married a day short of 3 weeks and I realize that I am so in love that I trust him enough to be myself and to let him see me for me, and not the typical Mormon wife I thought I should be.  Knowing he loves me, and knowing I love him and that together we love our children, I am so completely happy.  I truly love my life... and it doesn't mean I don't miss my old life or that I don't have adjustments, but I do truly love my life.