I Love a Good Wedding

I'm excited to get married! A lot of people, well, women, say that and think mostly about the wedding event and there's nothing wrong with that! I'm excited to try on fancy dresses, decide what flavor our cake will be, pick out fine china if this was 1985 (where did that go anyway?), etc.. But I don't know that many couples think about life after that. It's all fun and games until you're trying to figure out the marriage thing.

I have no idea what kinds of things newlyweds and older married couples go through, or what kinds of arguments they have but I know that they happen and that's healthy (I think. I'm like 99% sure). I imagine it's kind of similar to one aspect that is infamous to my best friend and I's relationship. I told her she was annoying a couple weeks after I met her, which in retrospect that was really mean of the 13 year old me but in my defense she was literally asking for it. But now we laugh about it. It built a relationship where honesty was the foundation and it became something we grew to appreciate as we got older. We are for the most part able to tell each other it something is bothering us. I promise it sounds more harsh than it actually is (also, I love her bunches but I sincerely hope our relationship is not anywhere near the perfect depiction of a marriage because we can hardly be alone together for more than a couple of days). 

My point is isn't it healthier to say what's bothering you and fight rather than feel like you can't tell your spouse because you're afraid of how they'll react? We talked a little bit about this in class and this is where your wedding and proposal come back in. If the woman, and probably the man to a lesser extent, are able to look back on the beginning of their marriage fondly, then it tends to be easier for her in difficult times. Isn't that interesting? I don't think this is referring to just the wedding, but the proposal. How much effort did he show asking that question? No pressure, right?

In another one of my classes we were talking about this specific model that was supposed to help you see what you're doing that is helping or preventing you from achieving that goal by wording things a certain way. The example goal we used was saying how you really feel about something. In one of the columns in this model you're supposed to write something that you do that prevents you from this goal using the words "I'm committed to...". For our example, you could write "I'm committed to hiding" or "I'm committed to lying" because when you strip it down, isn't that really what you're doing if you aren't speaking how your truly feel? It may be harsh but it really shows you the truth of your actions and words (if you're interesting it's called the "immunity to change map". It requires a lot of candid self reflection but it can be eye opening). It's so thought provoking and writing about fighting and being honest with your spouse I was reminded of that example. 

Is it weird I hope for those fights? I mean, doesn't it really just mean you care? In a good marriage it should be inevitable. It's with someone who promised you'd spend the rest of your life with and them the same. If either one of you just give up that shows that maybe neither of you care enough about this marriage to fight to resolve the problem. Coming from a family that doesn't openly talk about emotional things, working on telling someone how I really feel has been beneficial not just for me but for my family and friends. I want to be able to carry that out the rest of my life and my marriage.