Everybody’s marriage looks perfect on paper.  That’s the danger of a world where we all live online in the view of the public.  It’s easy to look at others’ lives and think their lives are amazing.  The problem with this is that you are seeing an edited version of their life.

We put on Facebook only what we want others to see.  Our happy family pictures, our fun vacations, photos of us laughing.  We have edited out the negative and the arguments to show the world a TGI Friday sitcom life.  We gently hug after a misunderstanding that is easily solved through strong communication.

The truth is we all have our dirty secrets.  The dirtiest of them all is that marriage isn’t perfect.  For whatever reason we have all been taught to keep up this strange façade that if we smile large enough, no one will ever know our secret.

My marriage is not perfect.  I have never really lied to say it is.  I have written about our flaws as people and even our struggles to come back together post deployment.  The reality is that our cookie cutter life that our friends all believe is wonderful is often anything but.  Some couples find their strength in a deployment  Others are torn apart.

We are the latter.

I don’t know why.  But the next time you are drooling over someone else’s life online, remember you are seeing a carefully edited version of what they want you to see.  Remember that your life is full of struggles that no one knows about, as are everyone else’s.

No marriage is perfect.  Don’t be foolish in feeling alone when yours isn’t.