Things I've learned in and/or realized after 22 years of marriage.
1. You do get to the point where you don't actually remember how many years you've been married. I think after 20, you lose count. Sorta like how you stop counting months at some point when the newness of your baby wears off.
2. My parents have been married for 48 years. Every year, they ask each other if they want to do another year. I think that is probably a really good way to look at it.
Because the idea of forever, especially when you're in a thick funk of "Why in God's name haven't I run away from this person and the children we created?" is just not appealing.
3. In the moments when I'm not trying to make my brain better and stronger, I read People magazine. I recently read about a long-term non-married couple that broke up (Andrew Cuomo and Sandra Lee). Their statement was: "Over the recent past, we have realized that our lives have gone in different directions and our romantic relationship has turned into a deep friendship."
When I think about the couples I know who have been married 20+ years, they don't ooze romance; but they are deep friends.
It always makes me sad when couples split up, even though I know these breakups are truly for the best for these people as individuals (and for their families).
4. It is important to keep your expectations of marriage on the higher end of low.
I do not wear sexy underwear or dress like a French maid or say particularly nice things to my husband. I would not, under any circumstances, be defined as a fantastic wife. But my husband would not be defined as a fantastic husband.
I think people expect an awful lot out of marriage, which is fine as long as both people and the circumstances they are in make those expectations attainable.
What I am finding though, is that as children get older and you push toward age 50 and beyond it, you start to encounter all sorts of body and health and hormone-related issues that make life far, far more complicated than you ever dreamed possible. (Especially when you can still remember complaining about how hard it was to raise little kids. And it was hard except for that their toddler and young child problems were colors of sippy cups which were cheap and easy to solve.)
5. I have realized that
After 22 years, I'm going to have moments where I love him and moments where I want to bash his head in with an iron skillet (why didn't I take one of Papaw's iron skillets after he died?)
He has these moments with me.
It doesn't matter who I was with. And there are some people I would want to bash their heads in after 22minutes seconds.
We're compatible.
We make each other laugh.
Those things are pretty good, so why spend a lot of useless energy wondering about what might have happened if.
1. You do get to the point where you don't actually remember how many years you've been married. I think after 20, you lose count. Sorta like how you stop counting months at some point when the newness of your baby wears off.
2. My parents have been married for 48 years. Every year, they ask each other if they want to do another year. I think that is probably a really good way to look at it.
Because the idea of forever, especially when you're in a thick funk of "Why in God's name haven't I run away from this person and the children we created?" is just not appealing.
3. In the moments when I'm not trying to make my brain better and stronger, I read People magazine. I recently read about a long-term non-married couple that broke up (Andrew Cuomo and Sandra Lee). Their statement was: "Over the recent past, we have realized that our lives have gone in different directions and our romantic relationship has turned into a deep friendship."
When I think about the couples I know who have been married 20+ years, they don't ooze romance; but they are deep friends.
It always makes me sad when couples split up, even though I know these breakups are truly for the best for these people as individuals (and for their families).
4. It is important to keep your expectations of marriage on the higher end of low.
I do not wear sexy underwear or dress like a French maid or say particularly nice things to my husband. I would not, under any circumstances, be defined as a fantastic wife. But my husband would not be defined as a fantastic husband.
I think people expect an awful lot out of marriage, which is fine as long as both people and the circumstances they are in make those expectations attainable.
What I am finding though, is that as children get older and you push toward age 50 and beyond it, you start to encounter all sorts of body and health and hormone-related issues that make life far, far more complicated than you ever dreamed possible. (Especially when you can still remember complaining about how hard it was to raise little kids. And it was hard except for that their toddler and young child problems were colors of sippy cups which were cheap and easy to solve.)
5. I have realized that
- the grass isn't greener
- the road not taken is littered with brambles
- the glass slipper is uncomfortable as fuck.
After 22 years, I'm going to have moments where I love him and moments where I want to bash his head in with an iron skillet (why didn't I take one of Papaw's iron skillets after he died?)
He has these moments with me.
It doesn't matter who I was with. And there are some people I would want to bash their heads in after 22
We're compatible.
We make each other laugh.
Those things are pretty good, so why spend a lot of useless energy wondering about what might have happened if.
No comments:
Post a Comment