My cousin Laura, and her husband, Garret, just celebrated their first wedding anniversary (the one where the Bean was an epic #flowergirlfailure, even though she graced all the professional photos as though she rocked it, as seen here). Laura requested I write a few thoughts on the first year of marriage, or marriage in general, for her to compile into a book to give Garret (for their "paper" anni). I enjoyed reflecting briefly on Alex and my first year of marriage, and am happy to report that I have mostly nice things to say. Alex and I got most of our heavy, messy baggage unpacked long before we were engaged, let alone married. I think that's what happens when you travel in a foreign country together for months at a time. Then again, he might not necessarily share the same perspective, I don't know. But here's what I wrote ...
When I was a little girl, I don’t recall dreaming about my white knight or my wedding decor, but I absolutely do remember making plans to live near my best friend and go skiing with our kids every day in the winter. Back then, I imagined living right next door to Dee or Lindsay, married to twin boys, having babies at the same time, playing soccer together, walking our kids to school together, working as doctors at the same hospital, making dinner for each other’s families.
What I didn’t know then is that I would, indeed, get to live with and parent alongside my very best friend. In the place of one of my 3rd-grade girl friends, is Alex. He’s my homie, my BFF, my partner in crime, my TV-watching buddy, who undoubtedly finds a way to annoy me and then make me laugh every.single.day. And he keeps my heart safe. Before the Bean was born, he was even considered My Most Favoritist Person In The World.
I appreciate the idea of being included in a compilation of Year #1 marriage anecdotes/advice. For better or worse (pun intended), I can’t specifically recall our first year of marriage. For Alex and me, it felt like a realtively seamless transition, from living together to marriage, even to parenthood. I felt that we had overcome a lot of the early relationship hurdles long before we were engaged. We did, after all, work and live together all while starting to date. I was mean, he was always wrong. And then I discovered Zoloft.
Now that’s not to say we aren’t without our conflicts, Year #1 or Year #5. We are never without our conflicts. Because really, what fun would that be!?!? We are fiery, emotional people who reflexively like to have things our way. And constantly negotiating life with another person attached at your hip is simultaneously the BEST THING and the most annoying thing ever. This is even more true with children.
But seriously, neither of us really entered into our union with a set of expectations on how “marriage” should be. And I think this has served us well. For me, marriage is simultaneously everything I anticipated, and nothing I thought it would be. I suppose we expected love and laughter and respect and adventure. And most of the time this is what we provide each other. But every so often, we have unpleasant reminders that making someone else feel loved takes work. Loving him isn’t any work at all, but helping him know and feel and trust my love requires regular action on my part, and vice versa.
Additionally, we have relatively good communication. Sometimes we probably err on the side of over-communicating. We talk too much. People often say marriage is hard. That parenting is hard. While that’s all true, the crux of it is that PEOPLE ARE HARD! Being honest with yourself, and then with your partner, is the only way to make the hard things just a little bit less so.
All that said, I think there are a few keys to a really good relationship (easier said than done, of course):
- “Water their heart garden” – show love the way they want to be loved, rather than how you yourself feel love
- “Use your words” - never expect someone else to read your mind
- Try to give just a little more than you feel like you need to
- Don’t count on one person to be your everything; in the end all we have is ourselves
No comments:
Post a Comment