Marriage is a union of two people, but what that union looks like is different for everyone. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way what marriage isn't. And eventually learned what it is through my wonderful husband. I also know that our journey together has barely begun. Marriage means a lot of tough stuff.
Most of our television and movies depict marriage as the goal line, the last scene before the credits roll. Very few images in our culture show what a marriage looks like surviving life. In our current culture of if it doesn't work, we throw it away or if I'm not happy, move on - I don't know that many people understand how to make a relationship work through the worst life and each other can throw at it.
With recent friends dealing with various crises in their marriages and a few friends getting engaged and married, marriage has been on my mind a lot. It is certainly the hardest thing I've ever done (or a close tie to being a 'single' mom with the stomach flu). It is hard to look at someone who just made you so angry you could spit and imagine sleeping next to him for the next 50 years or so. It is hard to get up everyday and ask yourself what I can do to love him today, not what can he do for me. It is hard enough for the two of you to get along with being raised in very different environments, but add in dealing with extended family issues, parent's health concerns, children, religion, money, and the exhausting day to day and you have the bare minimum of what marriage is.
I wish I hadn't rushed into marriage previously. I said yes to someone I believed I loved because that was what you did after college, and I was afraid I would end up alone, couldn't see a future as an adult without getting married right away. I wanted to have my children young so that I would be the cool, hip mom, but because I made my decision based on some imaginary timeline instead of realizing that marriage meant truly tying myself to someone forever, I ended up divorced.
Most of our television and movies depict marriage as the goal line, the last scene before the credits roll. Very few images in our culture show what a marriage looks like surviving life. In our current culture of if it doesn't work, we throw it away or if I'm not happy, move on - I don't know that many people understand how to make a relationship work through the worst life and each other can throw at it.
With recent friends dealing with various crises in their marriages and a few friends getting engaged and married, marriage has been on my mind a lot. It is certainly the hardest thing I've ever done (or a close tie to being a 'single' mom with the stomach flu). It is hard to look at someone who just made you so angry you could spit and imagine sleeping next to him for the next 50 years or so. It is hard to get up everyday and ask yourself what I can do to love him today, not what can he do for me. It is hard enough for the two of you to get along with being raised in very different environments, but add in dealing with extended family issues, parent's health concerns, children, religion, money, and the exhausting day to day and you have the bare minimum of what marriage is.
I wish I hadn't rushed into marriage previously. I said yes to someone I believed I loved because that was what you did after college, and I was afraid I would end up alone, couldn't see a future as an adult without getting married right away. I wanted to have my children young so that I would be the cool, hip mom, but because I made my decision based on some imaginary timeline instead of realizing that marriage meant truly tying myself to someone forever, I ended up divorced.
I look around me and see people in my life treating marriage as the next logical step for their life, not necessarily because it is the next logical step for their relationship. I know I spent many years being terrified of being alone, until my ex finally left and then I realized being alone wasn't the worst thing in the world. Being with someone cruel was much, much worse. I would rather be alone, trust me. But knowing that gave me immense power, finally to walk away from negative relationships and realize I deserved to be treated well.
A good marriage is a beautiful thing, but if you asked me to choose five marriages in my life that I would want to have, I would be hard pressed to come up with five that truly seem happy. Being married is kind of like buying stock for a long term investment. Sometimes it is up and sometimes it is down, but your future is tied to it either way and you have to hang onto it and hope for the best. I wish I would have thought about it that way before attempting it. It is a whole new way to consider the strengths and weaknesses of someone you love. Most of the time we jump in the pool because the water looks nice, only to find it an icy shock.
Because loving someone for a lifetime isn't about the romance, it's about the daily grind. Do you share similar habits around the house or are you going to be bickering about stupid stuff for the next 50 years. My husband and I share cleanliness levels, but argue about organizational issues often. I am trying to get better about picking the battles that really matter and I've caught him organizing things of his own volition. But we've had some pretty good "discussions" about the benefits of keeping stuff in the same place so we can find it again. I'm all for it, but sometimes that is just too much for him to process while cooking or cleaning. But I knew that going in and decided I loved him anyway and would have to find ways to compromise (mostly I just don't look in his closet).
Does his idea of a perfect house match mine? NO - not even close, but we're working on compromise there and since we can't afford diddly squat, this is a non-issue. Does his ideas about our future match mine? We're getting closer on this one. Two years ago, we had a ways to go, but we've learned that being financially secure and appreciating the things we each value are the keys to finding some balance between what we want and need.
Is our marriage perfect, no? But, I am more in love with him today than I was the day I married him. I appreciate him more and worry less about dumb stuff. I'm not afraid he'll leave or cheat, but fully believe I will be a hunting widow every year for several different seasons of critters. Because we both failed at marriage, we knew what we were getting into, how bad it could be and maybe that made us appreciate each other more.
We still have things to work on and places to grow, but we're doing really well at talking about them and learning the language of communicating. I think what we've done right so far was pick someone who fit in the myriad of tiny ways someone just clicks into place and work really hard to smooth out the places that didn't mesh right away. Mostly, we got married because we couldn't spend one more day without each other, because a life apart wasn't worth living, because literally for better or worse, we wanted to share that life with each other. I felt no pressure to get married when he asked. I even had a friend play devil's advocate to help me make sure it was what I wanted before we started planning. Neither of us were nervous about marrying each other (he was a bit nervous about the ceremony part), but we knew that we wanted each other to weather the storms of life.
We've only been married for almost five years and together for seven and he's been deployed a lot of that, but we've made it through a lot so far. And will have tons of trials to survive in the future. But I think we'll make it. I just hope that we're as happy twenty years from now as we are today or happier. We certainly have the right recipe, now only time will tell if we can take the heat.
A good marriage is a beautiful thing, but if you asked me to choose five marriages in my life that I would want to have, I would be hard pressed to come up with five that truly seem happy. Being married is kind of like buying stock for a long term investment. Sometimes it is up and sometimes it is down, but your future is tied to it either way and you have to hang onto it and hope for the best. I wish I would have thought about it that way before attempting it. It is a whole new way to consider the strengths and weaknesses of someone you love. Most of the time we jump in the pool because the water looks nice, only to find it an icy shock.
Because loving someone for a lifetime isn't about the romance, it's about the daily grind. Do you share similar habits around the house or are you going to be bickering about stupid stuff for the next 50 years. My husband and I share cleanliness levels, but argue about organizational issues often. I am trying to get better about picking the battles that really matter and I've caught him organizing things of his own volition. But we've had some pretty good "discussions" about the benefits of keeping stuff in the same place so we can find it again. I'm all for it, but sometimes that is just too much for him to process while cooking or cleaning. But I knew that going in and decided I loved him anyway and would have to find ways to compromise (mostly I just don't look in his closet).
Does his idea of a perfect house match mine? NO - not even close, but we're working on compromise there and since we can't afford diddly squat, this is a non-issue. Does his ideas about our future match mine? We're getting closer on this one. Two years ago, we had a ways to go, but we've learned that being financially secure and appreciating the things we each value are the keys to finding some balance between what we want and need.
Is our marriage perfect, no? But, I am more in love with him today than I was the day I married him. I appreciate him more and worry less about dumb stuff. I'm not afraid he'll leave or cheat, but fully believe I will be a hunting widow every year for several different seasons of critters. Because we both failed at marriage, we knew what we were getting into, how bad it could be and maybe that made us appreciate each other more.
We still have things to work on and places to grow, but we're doing really well at talking about them and learning the language of communicating. I think what we've done right so far was pick someone who fit in the myriad of tiny ways someone just clicks into place and work really hard to smooth out the places that didn't mesh right away. Mostly, we got married because we couldn't spend one more day without each other, because a life apart wasn't worth living, because literally for better or worse, we wanted to share that life with each other. I felt no pressure to get married when he asked. I even had a friend play devil's advocate to help me make sure it was what I wanted before we started planning. Neither of us were nervous about marrying each other (he was a bit nervous about the ceremony part), but we knew that we wanted each other to weather the storms of life.
We've only been married for almost five years and together for seven and he's been deployed a lot of that, but we've made it through a lot so far. And will have tons of trials to survive in the future. But I think we'll make it. I just hope that we're as happy twenty years from now as we are today or happier. We certainly have the right recipe, now only time will tell if we can take the heat.
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