What is marriage, anyway?
I've been reflecting a lot as I dig more into the marriage counseling website affiliated with The First Dance, about what it takes to be married and if things get tough, what the solutions are.
There are so many "theories" on relationships, how and why they work and how to fix them when they break. I have never gone to a counselor myself, other than growing up with a counselor father and reaping the rewards of that father/daughter relationship. But I do wonder how we all see ourselves, our relationships and how we view the world as it relates to who we are and why we get married.
Whenever I get together with certain old friends, I always leave feeling a bit hollow inside in the way they talk about their marriages/husbands. Invariably I come home to my own husband and we process the way they talk about their spouses and how that makes me feel depressed inside! But then my husband and I talk about how we all come into a relationship with our own emotional baggage, our own notions of what a wife/husband is and what a marriage looks like. If your model is not a great marriage, or a selfish parent in a bad marriage, it's no wonder we can get confused as we grow up.
And from where I sit with The First Dance, I feel defensive for all of you who do not want to be talked down to, treated like you are clueless as you plan your wedding. If you want premarital help it's because you recognize that marriage is hard work and you'd appreciate some tips and tricks. It seems that our generation (Gen X and Gen Y) are in a completely different place than our parents generation when it comes to male-female relationships and to our own marriages.
Perhaps I'm just thinking about how complex life is, how complex marriage is, and what tools couples should have before entering into a marriage-bound relationship. Once you are engaged, my feeling is that you were smart enough to recognize in yourself and your partner that this was a match worth fighting for and worth spending the rest of your lives for. The question then, I guess, is if things get tough, as they always do, how do we as a society help support your marriage? How do we hold up your vulnerability and show you the strength underneath rather than tear your commitment down, devolving into "I just deserve to be happy" or, "life is too short" mentality.
My husband and I just celebrated our FIVE year wedding anniversary. If you would have said half of the things that have happened to us 5 years ago I would have been horrified, shocked, and scared to death. We have had extreme career changes, mental health issues, mortality issues (a few horrendous medical crisis'), two children, chronic health problems from a pregnancy... and that's just to name the biggies. I have experienced the lowest points of my entire live through all that and been on the brink of complete hopelessness.
I've experienced points where I could see the exit ramps that others might have chosen to take. Life is tough, stressful, and it seems like giving up is the easy way out. But when you stop and really think about it, you are not remotely perfect. You are annoying, you stress out your partner, bad things that happen to you also greatly impact your spouse, and yet she or he sticks by your side. You may resent something that happens to you or to your spouse or to your lives together. But it should be a humbling reminder that if you can share in "this sucks", whatever "this" is, then you have accomplished a huge task of married life - commitment. Wouldn't you rather ride the next roller coaster with a comforting, familiar face? With the person who has said in words or actions, through the good and bad, I'm by your side?
I feel the tension in our society between me saying "divorce is not an option for me" and the "oh, Elizabeth, you are SO naive." It's as if by saying you are in this forever, you are denying that "people change and grow apart", or denying that you may have married "the wrong person." While there are certaintly relationships that come to a shocking, unilateral end, for the vast majority of us it's never that simple. The longer I am married, the more I am in awe, humble awe, that each of us is very imperfect and by recognizing that, we can see our spouses in a new, respectful light. We can see our parents marriages in a new light. We can see our friends who seem to have high conflict "bad marriages" in a new light. It's the dance back and forth in a marriage that takes work - compromise, communication, humility, that ultimately pays off with intense security, happiness, contentment, and a stability that no matter WHAT is slung your way next (massive car accident, disability, heart attack, job loss), you are with the person who will be at your side.
It's a pretty funny thing to try to plan the PERFECT wedding when entering a completely imperfect relationship, called marriage. As if in "real life" you ever have to agree on a color theme, or ever have to spend hours upon hours figuring out which flowers best respresent your couplehood, or what invitations best fit the "tone" of your relationship. Those can be fun excersizes, but more often than not, they get in the way and cause people to doubt their relationship ("how can we get married if we are fighting over something as stupid as the wedding invitations??") rather than doubt the cultural pressures placed on weddings today.
I would say The First Dance is only about 30% "done". I have a lot more in my head I need to get out! I think there is so much unsaid in our culture and so much untapped wisdom of real couples. I hope to get more of that out in the coming months.
-Elizabeth
There are so many "theories" on relationships, how and why they work and how to fix them when they break. I have never gone to a counselor myself, other than growing up with a counselor father and reaping the rewards of that father/daughter relationship. But I do wonder how we all see ourselves, our relationships and how we view the world as it relates to who we are and why we get married.
Whenever I get together with certain old friends, I always leave feeling a bit hollow inside in the way they talk about their marriages/husbands. Invariably I come home to my own husband and we process the way they talk about their spouses and how that makes me feel depressed inside! But then my husband and I talk about how we all come into a relationship with our own emotional baggage, our own notions of what a wife/husband is and what a marriage looks like. If your model is not a great marriage, or a selfish parent in a bad marriage, it's no wonder we can get confused as we grow up.
And from where I sit with The First Dance, I feel defensive for all of you who do not want to be talked down to, treated like you are clueless as you plan your wedding. If you want premarital help it's because you recognize that marriage is hard work and you'd appreciate some tips and tricks. It seems that our generation (Gen X and Gen Y) are in a completely different place than our parents generation when it comes to male-female relationships and to our own marriages.
Perhaps I'm just thinking about how complex life is, how complex marriage is, and what tools couples should have before entering into a marriage-bound relationship. Once you are engaged, my feeling is that you were smart enough to recognize in yourself and your partner that this was a match worth fighting for and worth spending the rest of your lives for. The question then, I guess, is if things get tough, as they always do, how do we as a society help support your marriage? How do we hold up your vulnerability and show you the strength underneath rather than tear your commitment down, devolving into "I just deserve to be happy" or, "life is too short" mentality.
My husband and I just celebrated our FIVE year wedding anniversary. If you would have said half of the things that have happened to us 5 years ago I would have been horrified, shocked, and scared to death. We have had extreme career changes, mental health issues, mortality issues (a few horrendous medical crisis'), two children, chronic health problems from a pregnancy... and that's just to name the biggies. I have experienced the lowest points of my entire live through all that and been on the brink of complete hopelessness.
I've experienced points where I could see the exit ramps that others might have chosen to take. Life is tough, stressful, and it seems like giving up is the easy way out. But when you stop and really think about it, you are not remotely perfect. You are annoying, you stress out your partner, bad things that happen to you also greatly impact your spouse, and yet she or he sticks by your side. You may resent something that happens to you or to your spouse or to your lives together. But it should be a humbling reminder that if you can share in "this sucks", whatever "this" is, then you have accomplished a huge task of married life - commitment. Wouldn't you rather ride the next roller coaster with a comforting, familiar face? With the person who has said in words or actions, through the good and bad, I'm by your side?
I feel the tension in our society between me saying "divorce is not an option for me" and the "oh, Elizabeth, you are SO naive." It's as if by saying you are in this forever, you are denying that "people change and grow apart", or denying that you may have married "the wrong person." While there are certaintly relationships that come to a shocking, unilateral end, for the vast majority of us it's never that simple. The longer I am married, the more I am in awe, humble awe, that each of us is very imperfect and by recognizing that, we can see our spouses in a new, respectful light. We can see our parents marriages in a new light. We can see our friends who seem to have high conflict "bad marriages" in a new light. It's the dance back and forth in a marriage that takes work - compromise, communication, humility, that ultimately pays off with intense security, happiness, contentment, and a stability that no matter WHAT is slung your way next (massive car accident, disability, heart attack, job loss), you are with the person who will be at your side.
It's a pretty funny thing to try to plan the PERFECT wedding when entering a completely imperfect relationship, called marriage. As if in "real life" you ever have to agree on a color theme, or ever have to spend hours upon hours figuring out which flowers best respresent your couplehood, or what invitations best fit the "tone" of your relationship. Those can be fun excersizes, but more often than not, they get in the way and cause people to doubt their relationship ("how can we get married if we are fighting over something as stupid as the wedding invitations??") rather than doubt the cultural pressures placed on weddings today.
I would say The First Dance is only about 30% "done". I have a lot more in my head I need to get out! I think there is so much unsaid in our culture and so much untapped wisdom of real couples. I hope to get more of that out in the coming months.
-Elizabeth
Labels: marriage
posted by Elizabeth Doherty Thomas at
3:11 PM
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