“How is married life?” It’s the question every new couple
hears everywhere they go. We hear it the most from people who have been married
a good while. Some people are asking a genuinely concerned question – they want
to support you through the struggle of new marriage. Others use it as filler,
just like “Hey, how are you?” Still others give the impression that they want
to hear the exuberant gush of, “Oh! Married life is AMAZING! I’ve never been
this fulfilled, happy, or well-adjusted!” Sometimes, I want to respond with,
“I’d be happy to tell you about my marriage, but you go first! How is your
marriage these days?”
Honestly, I’m happy to talk about marriage with people who
really want to talk about it. I think it would be good for us to be more open
with each other. This post seems a little silly to write, because I’m confident
that anyone who is married will completely understand the things that I’m going
to say. Here are some of the responses that I am tempted to give when people
ask how married life is…
1) I’m tired all of
the time.
We’ve been married for almost two months, and I’m still not
sleeping as deeply as I did when I didn’t share a bed. I’m sleeping; even
sleeping all night – but I’m just more aware of my surroundings while I’m
sleeping than I was before we got married. The weeks of adjusting to sleeping
in the same bed with another human are hard.
2) Where did all of
this laundry come from???
Yes, I’m well aware that there will be even more laundry after
we decide to have children. Yes, I know that I will look back at right now and
wonder why I was overwhelmed by the laundry. My reality is, though, that the
laundry is overwhelming to me right
now. I’ll adjust, and then I’ll adjust again when we have kids. But right now,
I’m not adjusted yet, so the laundry is hard.
3) I always feel like I’m failing to meet the
expectations I have for myself.
This is true even outside of marriage, but marriage provides
a whole new arena for Satan to tempt me with feelings of failure. I’m writing a
doctoral dissertation right now, and each day I fail to write as much as I
planned to write that day. My desk is messier than I want to have it. I can’t
find time to do the experiments my mentor wants me to keep doing. Each day, I
leave work having failed to meet my expectations for the day. I pack up my
feelings of inadequacy and walk right in the door with them. My husband asks,
“Did you have a productive day?” A wave of guilt washes over me, and I snap
back, “No. I just couldn’t get it all done. And now I have to make dinner and
do a million things around here tonight.” Another wave of guilt, and “I’m
sorry; I shouldn’t have snapped. I’m just overwhelmed,” finds its way out of my
mouth. “I understand. How can I help?” he asks. You see, my husband is a very
good man and he loves me a lot. His offer makes me feel even guiltier, because
I want to serve him by filling all
of those traditionally female roles. I enjoy
making breakfast for him each morning. It gives me real pleasure to see his
dresser full of laundry that I washed and folded and put away. I want to be
able to do everything. (I’m going to blog later about that offer of help making
me feel a negative emotion, and what that communicates to him – I’m learning to
be grateful instead of guilty).
Marriage is giving me a new area to learn that “good enough”
is sometimes ok. When another person is involved, though, “good enough” feels
like complete failure. Like everyone else in 21st century America, I
have a weird perception of what marriage is supposed to be. I tried to correct
that before I was married, but I’m still correcting it now that I am married.
Marriage doesn’t make you perfect overnight. In fact, marriage is this
incredibly clear mirror in which you are enabled to see flaws in yourself that
you never knew were there. Thankfully, I am married to a man who loves me flaws
and all. That doesn’t stop me from being overwhelmed by the flaws I see in
myself.
4) I had no idea that
we would fight so much about sleep
My husband and I have opposite internal body clocks. I am
done for by 10 PM, and he’s just getting started. We’ve gone to bed together
since we got married, and I try to get up thirty minutes to an hour before he
does (that happens probably 50% of the time – more fodder for the guilt flame
to eat up…). I’m ready for bed at 10, and he’s ready to pop in a movie. We both
feel like we’ve compromised on bedtimes, but our compromises are still
discrepant.
5) I’m still learning
how to pray for my marriage.
Prayer has always been a struggle for me. For some reason,
it’s one of the hardest Christian habits for me to maintain. With a fledgling
marriage on board, learning to pray feels more urgent.
6) The struggle is
what makes marriage good.
I have heard a metaphor in which lives are likened to brick
walls. When a marriage begins, each wall is taken apart, brick by brick. Then,
some of the bricks are discarded. Most of them, however, are used to build a
single wall out of the pieces that made up two. There are lots of “best parts”
to early marriage, but one of my very favorites is the connection I feel after
a difficult conversation. When we’ve put in the hard work to take down more
pieces of our individual walls and find out where they fit together in our new
one, it feels good. It feels like we’re going to make it. It feels like, just
maybe, one of these days, we’ll have our wall put together.
1 comment:
Every.Single.Thing. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you just posted. In my experience (obviously limited, as well) this is all completely normal. It is hard, but that sense of constantly striving to make it better for both of you is what makes marriage a unique and wonderful relationship. And hang in there with writing...we are all pulling for you! <3
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