Do you know what this photo depicts? If you answered, "The reason your marriage might not make it, Jodie," then, winner, winner, chicken dinner! Because you'd be correct.

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Erik and I can do hard together. By God, you'd better believe me when I tell you that we have. But this kind of hard, working well together to hitch the trailer to the truck? Nope. No can do. This trips us up every time.

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This last time we tried, a good Samaritan type fella felt compelled to intervene in our mess of an attempt at getting hitched. He was standing off to the side, watching me implode in my failing efforts to send Erik the right signals and he made his presence known by saying, "Oh, hon, let me help you all with this." Which he proceeded to do in mere seconds without any steam coming out of his ears or red-hot rage spreading across his face. And so Erik and I are still married.

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But we're going to have to do this together again and again, there's no getting around it. And we're no good at doing this together and apparently there's no getting around that either. Continually struggling this way, not just with the truck and trailer but with all the difficulties in marriage, if I'm not careful, can lead to me thinking we're just not good together, period.

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In my frustration, I come away from this kind of struggle sure we each picked wrong. If we can't hitch a trailer without feeling the need to hire divorce lawyers afterward what good are we together anyway? How can we do the really hard things if we can't do this low to medium hard thing without combusting?

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But once the hitching is done and I begin to calm the bleep down, I remember that this is exactly what marriage is like, for everyone, everywhere. There will be challenges we'll come up against that will test our coupledom to its core. There will be tasks one of us excels at and the other stinks to high hell at. There will be instances when we end up working against each other despite our effort and desire to work well together.

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And through all that, there can still be love. A love that sustains and smooths ruffled feathers back over. A love that trumps all that threatens to break it down. A love that reminds us though we're not always going to be good at everything we face together and that sometimes we'll plain fail each other, we'll still be good together, and good for each other, as long as we keep deciding to be. As long as we keep viewing our struggles as just inevitable bumps in the road, not sinkholes that give way to the mountainside.

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Trying to get hitched up may continue to feel like one of the most challenging and frustrating things Erik and I attempt to do together, but now it just serves to remind me we always get 'er done and after the doing, no matter how hard, the ire always morphs back into love and this is true across the board for every test we've ever been put to. There hasn't been one yet we haven't passed. Yes, there's been some retakes and plenty of extra tutoring along the way, but I think that just proves our commitment to each other and our ability to do hard together even further.

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Written by: Jodie Utter ~ For more of this kind of imperfect muddling through, please follow me at Utter Imperfection