WHAT'S THE HARDEST PART ABOUT MARRIAGE THAT NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT.
There isn’t just one:
“You can be right or you can be happy, but you cannot be them both.” This is largely true. No, I’m not a pacifist — I fight about plenty of things. I’m married to someone I love. I can fight and quibble over everything or the worthless small things or I can learn to be wrong. I can learn to let him take credit for whatever he likes. I don’t succeed at this every day of our lives, but I work on it, I’m improving and it’s made our lives better.
“We can have things or we can do things, but we cannot have them both.” We don’t give gifts of any kind. We don’t buy lots of stuff for our houses and we avoid spending money on expensive big purchases like nice cars. We travel A LOT. We save every spare penny and go places. (Southern Africa — May 2020.)
“Whatever we do, we do it together. Everything that is mine, is his; everything that is his, is mine. Whatever the problem, it’s both of ours.” Everything from eating healthy, to going to the gym to dealing with family matters — Rick and I do all of it together. We have one bank account and everything we own has both our names on it.
“If I’m not working as hard every week, 13 years into this marriage, than I did 13 years ago, then I’m failing the marriage.” I see this a LOT with couples — they take care of everybody else. I see patterns in this: moms and dads tend to be unable to leave their kids to go away for two days. My parents always told us, “You aren’t first in this house. We are.” My parents made sure we weren’t the center of their lives in every way. They had date night every friday, small trips alone and “no kids” time in the house. Putting your kids first is not as good for them as you think it is and it’s certainly not good for your marriage. Fun fact: all the toys and houses and vacations in the world won’t do jack shit for their lives, but loving their [mom/dad] and giving them a stable home with their parents is the best gift you can provide a child. To this day, I put Rick above almost every other thing in life and I am always working and creating new ways to do different things together.
“Cultivate a relationship of absolute transparency.” Was the sex bad? Do you want to have sex with that guy? Does my breath stink? Does this shirt look good? Can you tell I’ve gained weight? Did my voice sound silly? Was this dinner/cake good? Any of those questions between us would get a totally truthful answer without even a flicker of upset. We have a rule: if you ask for the truth, nobody lies. Nobody exaggerates one aspect over another. I love that my husband can casually tell me the truth (and vise versa) without it causing any issues. I’ve seen couples where it’s nothing but anger over the truth. A marriage built on stupid lies to me is broken.
“See everything in your life as transient; here today and rendered to stardust one time in the future.” My husband used a face wash that left a bleaching residue on his face. He then subsequently semi-bleached a third of our $500 towel set. I … was … upset. But I also remembered my rule about transience and asked myself my core question here: “When would it have been okay to spotty-bleach these towels? Never? That’s silly. 10 years? Maybe. Whatever the time is for a thing to be here and then gone, no matter what, when the things we like leave us, we tend to get upset.” I remind myself that in a marriage—itself a temporary construct—we will use many expensive things and then they will go away.
“Always continue to say I love you and look for new ways —big and small— to express your affection.” So, months after Rick ruined-ish these towels (they work fine, but the gray-blue towels have goldish streaks in spots … that tease me, they point their bleachy little fingers at me and laugh at me), he’s dutifully always put them out on his rack to make sure I never have to use them. (It’s not that big a deal, but he does feel bad about it and this is one of his ways of showing that he knows he did it.) I wrote out small notes and folded them into his towel. “Here’s your naughty-boy towel, Dickie. I love you.” Little jokes and gestures go very far.
Rick, on the other hand, surprised me on Saturday and said, “Dan. I want to make home made pierogies and ceviche.” I mean, not your most common combination, but it worked. He comes up with crafty ways for the two of us to play in the kitchen, while I cook and help teach him how to cook along the way.
These aren’t mantras. This is not an exhaustive list. I don’t utter them under my breath day and night to memorize these as codes of conduct. But they’re the ingredients that have worked for us.
There isn’t just one:
“You can be right or you can be happy, but you cannot be them both.” This is largely true. No, I’m not a pacifist — I fight about plenty of things. I’m married to someone I love. I can fight and quibble over everything or the worthless small things or I can learn to be wrong. I can learn to let him take credit for whatever he likes. I don’t succeed at this every day of our lives, but I work on it, I’m improving and it’s made our lives better.
“We can have things or we can do things, but we cannot have them both.” We don’t give gifts of any kind. We don’t buy lots of stuff for our houses and we avoid spending money on expensive big purchases like nice cars. We travel A LOT. We save every spare penny and go places. (Southern Africa — May 2020.)
“Whatever we do, we do it together. Everything that is mine, is his; everything that is his, is mine. Whatever the problem, it’s both of ours.” Everything from eating healthy, to going to the gym to dealing with family matters — Rick and I do all of it together. We have one bank account and everything we own has both our names on it.
“If I’m not working as hard every week, 13 years into this marriage, than I did 13 years ago, then I’m failing the marriage.” I see this a LOT with couples — they take care of everybody else. I see patterns in this: moms and dads tend to be unable to leave their kids to go away for two days. My parents always told us, “You aren’t first in this house. We are.” My parents made sure we weren’t the center of their lives in every way. They had date night every friday, small trips alone and “no kids” time in the house. Putting your kids first is not as good for them as you think it is and it’s certainly not good for your marriage. Fun fact: all the toys and houses and vacations in the world won’t do jack shit for their lives, but loving their [mom/dad] and giving them a stable home with their parents is the best gift you can provide a child. To this day, I put Rick above almost every other thing in life and I am always working and creating new ways to do different things together.
“Cultivate a relationship of absolute transparency.” Was the sex bad? Do you want to have sex with that guy? Does my breath stink? Does this shirt look good? Can you tell I’ve gained weight? Did my voice sound silly? Was this dinner/cake good? Any of those questions between us would get a totally truthful answer without even a flicker of upset. We have a rule: if you ask for the truth, nobody lies. Nobody exaggerates one aspect over another. I love that my husband can casually tell me the truth (and vise versa) without it causing any issues. I’ve seen couples where it’s nothing but anger over the truth. A marriage built on stupid lies to me is broken.
“See everything in your life as transient; here today and rendered to stardust one time in the future.” My husband used a face wash that left a bleaching residue on his face. He then subsequently semi-bleached a third of our $500 towel set. I … was … upset. But I also remembered my rule about transience and asked myself my core question here: “When would it have been okay to spotty-bleach these towels? Never? That’s silly. 10 years? Maybe. Whatever the time is for a thing to be here and then gone, no matter what, when the things we like leave us, we tend to get upset.” I remind myself that in a marriage—itself a temporary construct—we will use many expensive things and then they will go away.
“Always continue to say I love you and look for new ways —big and small— to express your affection.” So, months after Rick ruined-ish these towels (they work fine, but the gray-blue towels have goldish streaks in spots … that tease me, they point their bleachy little fingers at me and laugh at me), he’s dutifully always put them out on his rack to make sure I never have to use them. (It’s not that big a deal, but he does feel bad about it and this is one of his ways of showing that he knows he did it.) I wrote out small notes and folded them into his towel. “Here’s your naughty-boy towel, Dickie. I love you.” Little jokes and gestures go very far.
Rick, on the other hand, surprised me on Saturday and said, “Dan. I want to make home made pierogies and ceviche.” I mean, not your most common combination, but it worked. He comes up with crafty ways for the two of us to play in the kitchen, while I cook and help teach him how to cook along the way.
These aren’t mantras. This is not an exhaustive list. I don’t utter them under my breath day and night to memorize these as codes of conduct. But they’re the ingredients that have worked for us.
Comments
Post a Comment