Marriage Myths

I was a very young bride. I was married on November 2, 2002, just nine days shy of my 22nd birthday. I wouldn't have changed the teeniest thing for the world on a string. Being young and getting married can be a tricky and sometimes treacherous path to walk in life, but we have managed it, I believe with love, grace, and humor these past seven years. There has been much more laughter than tears in our life together, I am happy to report, but also lessons learned. Most of them quite humorous, most embarrassingly so, but, again, this makes for good laughs and happy memories and I wouldn't have it any other way...

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I had concocted a few myths and had ideals about what my marriage would be like. Oh yes, I listened and absorbed most advice from an observational perspective, "That is nice to know and I am glad it worked for THEM, but we will see what works for US..." While that can be true, some things are universal and some lessons come to some of us more stubborn folks a little harder...

1) I will never, EVER leave the bathroom stinky and/or fart in front of my husband.

Unless you share separate bathrooms or have some condition that leaves your poop and/or farts odorless and silent (lucky you!) this has proven to be a complete impossibility. My mother will attest to the fact that I swore this up and down for years. I still remember this oath to myself and God knows I try to live up to my end of the bargain, but we have never lived in a home over 1000 square feet with more than one bathroom. As I say, this is an impossibility and my husband still finds this all quite hilarious and me utterly mortified.

2) I will never "let myself go" ie: gain weight, let my roots grow out, leave my legs unshaven, and other uncomely, unsightly manners of lesser wives who have become mothers and can't seem to hold it together.

Oh how young and stupid I was. Weight gain was inevitable because the starvation diet that I had myself on so as not to be a "fat bride" could not have lasted much longer or I would have killed and eaten someone. Three years after the wedding let's add some stress and two, more or less, back to back pregnancies and well, there you go, an extra thirty pounds that just won't go away! As for the hair, when I was on my own and paying for my own things or even when people gifted me with hair cuts at the salon, I never gave it a second thought. Then in marriage, when money started getting tight and at home hair dying proved unsuccessful (oh I have so many funny stories!!), and then when children came about, not only was the time not there like it used to be, as I do not have a nanny or the extra money for a babysitter, etc., some things just slip quietly away and six months later one wakes up and realizes the state of things... That goes for the legs and any other unsightly issue as well.

3) I would not be his servant ie: fold his underwear, clean up after him, cater meals, etc. This is the twenty first century and we are going to be a twenty first century couple! Equals. Fair share!

Let's face it, men are men and women are women. There are aberrations, but generally speaking, married men don't tend to be the best when it comes to household management chores. Underwear ends up shoved into drawers, things that have been "cleaned up" according to his standards are really just not clean at all whatsoever, meals become "meals" a general idea of what it might have been, but something utterly unappetizing and sometimes indistinguishable as a palatable food item. So, for the sake of one and all, especially after children arrived, it became, like good old Frank Sinatra sang, My Way.

4) I wouldn't be whiny and needy or take it personally if my husband wants to hang out with his friends instead of me.

Guys need their friends and need to do their crazy male bonding, shooting each other with paint ball guns, sleeping out in the cold on the ground, eating dried fruit and hot dogs cooked on a stick, for whatever reason. I have gotten annoyed in the past (and probably will in the future, even though I will try my hardest not to), but I do consciously recognize and attempt to understand that men need to play, just like women need to chat. There was one time that I gave my husband the cold shoulder for an entire weekend because he went camping when I didn't want him to and while I had my reasons, it still wasn't very nice of me and again, another one of my myths, busted.

5) It was going to be a long, long time before we had kids, if at all.

When we first got married, I wasn't sure that I had wanted children. I was young and didn't even want to think about it. In all honesty, I think that I thought I would be an awful mother anyway and I didn't even want to try because that wouldn't be something I could just quit, if I sucked at it. Lo and behold, two and half years into our life together, I caught the baby bug and had the realization that children would just add to the "US" that we had become and I couldn't imagine a more beautiful thing which leads me to my sixth myth that has more to do with procreating than marriage itself...

6) I really didn't think that we would ACTUALLY get pregnant.

Okay, I am not THAT stupid that I didn't know how it all works. I did. It was just that idea of it actually happening to us, that and the idea of having something happen within us entirely in and also so completely out of our control, just seemed so absurd. I mean, God in his infinite wisdom wouldn't let the two of US be solely responsible for a human being. It was beyond absurd. A part of me was testing fate. Does this ACTUALLY happen? Um, yes. It does, and it did. To us. Almost immediately. So one of my first thoughts? "I guess our stuff actually works" or something of that nature. It's hard to relate the actual thoughts I may have had as I was in a complete electric state of shock for about three days. I think Andrew was, too.

7) Not my myths, but common ones: Life isn't all fun and games. Real life isn't a fairy tale.

Oh yes it is!! If you make it that way. I truly believe so many things that so many people see as a drudgery in life are not meant to be so. If it becomes that way, then maybe it has something to do with the person. Our life together has not been a fairy tale, but it is made of the same stuff that fairy tales are made of and my glass slipper always seems to fit because I make it fit. My husband will always and forever be, no matter what, my very own Prince Charming. My kids? Sugar and spice and everything nice. No matter where we live, it's an enchanted castle. Every night can be Date Night, even if it's just a quick snack together, planning our schedule.

We aren't perfect and we don't always or have ever really had perfect circumstances, but they ARE perfect to us because it is OUR life. I have learned a lot of lessons in the past seven years and I am thrilled to keep learning new lessons for the next seventy-seven. I could not have dreamed up a better life even with all of our problems and ridiculous ideas and crazy quirks (mostly mine!), it is still practically perfect to me.

I love you, Andrew.