On Marriage

No one really tells you about marriage. There's a lot of hype and fuss over the wedding, but the nitty-gritty? Nope.

No one tells you that the first blush of romance and dates and getting to know one another, fades; usually after the first year. No one tells you that loving someone is a choice. One that is made day after day after day after day.

You won't always see eye-to-eye. There will be some rousing arguments that make you wonder if you are ever going to survive this. "Can we make it work? Do I want to make it work? What happened?"

Learning to live with someone is all about compromise and communication. For men, if you don't tell them what you are thinking and feeling, they aren't going to guess. And when they don't, we (women) get upset and frustrated that he "just isn't hearing me!". The thing is, to them, there is nothing to listen too! Because we have not told them, point blank, what we are thinking.

I wish that someone had told me this. That someone had pulled me aside and said: "Marriage with the right partner is great... but only if you learn to communicate and compromise, and it does take two." How often do we hear that? We don't. There is a huge hype about the young adult life. College, dating, relationships, THE WEDDING (bold letters are there for emphasis, it’s a huge hype). And then, everything seems to stop. As if, getting married is the end. There is no further talk in our society of what it takes to build a relationship, how to hold it together, how to learn to function around having children, and what that is going to mean for your relationship (ie. it becomes non-existent for a time). So, why do we end there? Why does no one expound upon how rich life can be, after all the hype? Because it is rich once you put in the work.

After all the arguments and tears and misunderstandings that can inevitably come from learning to live with a new person, there is an incredible richness. For example, being able to have an entire conversation without ever having to say a word. Finishing each other’s sentences or thoughts (although that still weirds my husband out). Morning coffees on the bed before the kids get up and the chaos of the day starts. Multi-tasking around each other as everyone gets going for the day, whether it is for work, school, or a home-day. Long conversations on how to raise the kids better, or political conversations on the (sad) state of the world in our day and age. Even just a Sunday afternoon drive with the kids and picnic basket, no plans made, just see where the road and the day take you.

I truly wish that there was more focus on these things and on this stage of life. The younger years, they are great. We learn and we make mistakes and expand our wings. It is after this though, that we begin to develop our own characters and our strengths. There is nothing in life, I think, that will test us more than building a relationship, raising children, and holding it all together to the end of our time. For myself, I know I have cried my tears, screamed my anger, wondered in frustration if I made the right choices, and always come back to the same conclusion: If I can get past myself, and listen, it was all worth it, because the joys and the reward outweigh everything else.

Perhaps, this is what we should be teaching our young ones, especially when it seems like the world is falling down around our ears.