Every Marriage is Different

You tied the knot!  Congratulations!  Welcome to one of the hardest – and most rewarding – journeys of your life.

Getting married is often exhilarating and fun, with lots of anticipation for a happy ending or a spectacular Hollywood moment.  Staying married, however, is a whole’nother story.  After the honeymoon is over and you and your partner start getting VERY comfortable with each other and falling into a routine, you will often wonder if you made the right decision by getting married.  “Wedded bliss” just doesn’t seem to be happening for you, and truth be told, your spouse doesn’t seem so blissful either.

You miss your single life, your friends, heck, even your old apartment when you were by yourself or with roommates.  You find out that your spouse does actually belch and fart, and that it somehow is just so much harder to be spontaneous and have fun.  You may feel like your life fell apart when you got married… Well, let me break something to you:  It’s perfectly normal!  Yes, marriage is one of the hardest things in life, and you have to constantly work at it.  You are not alone, but many people, just like you, hesitate to ask for help or even talk about it, because you’re afraid people may come back at you saying “I told you so” or “We knew you were making a mistake marrying that weirdo, but you wouldn’t listen to us” and quite honestly, that’s not something you want to hear.

So you start looking around at other married couples, and how they seem to have it all – their stuff is together and organized, they are always smiling, and they just never seem to fight.  They even commute together for work and go out to the movies once a week together.  And you look into your married life, and wonder why you can’t be just as “them.”

RED FLAG!!!  This is probably one of the most common mistakes newlyweds make!  Do not, and I repeat, do NOT compare your relationship to others.  You can usually see just the tip of the iceberg or the “public face” they have to appear as if their marriage is successful.  I am not suggesting that every marriage is miserable, but just that every marriage has its problems, and working through them is very important.

That they seem to be organized is probably a sign that they haven’t actually melded their lives together, that they are always smiling may be because they are constantly anxious, and that they never fight is probably because they don’t even talk to each other.  Again, I am not saying that all marriages are miserable, all I am saying is that we don’t really know what’s REALLY going on.

Remember those vows at your wedding?  Those promises you made to each other, whether suggested by your pastor/judge or written by you?  Those are things that you promise to work at for the rest of your life.  No one ever said that just because you promised them that they will magically happen.

It is also true that feelings and ideas change – the only constant in nature is change.  But it doesn’t mean that your commitment toward your spouse has changed or that your promise must be broken because you just can’t stand the toilet seat being up (or down).

Don’t make a mistake that I have found makes marriages go to splitville, do yourselves a huge favor, and DO NOT compare yourselves with other couples.  Do, however, work through your problems, and learn the art of compromise and accepting each other.  It really is the only way to success.

Having fights and getting angry is only natural.  It is how we deal with those things within our marriages that makes or breaks us.