Are you ready for marriage?

I had a little epiphany today and I just thought I would share. It was while I was vacuuming, such a wonderful pastime, and it just hit me. Man, I was so unprepared for marriage. So unprepared. Which is odd for many reasons.


1. I had seen PLENTY of Disney movies.


2. I knew men were nothing like those Disney Princes.


3. I knew marriage was hard, it required sacrifice and that it wasn't going to always be like the honeymoon.

I'm a fairly optimistic person, but I am VERY good at seeing the worst in a situation and/or preparing for the worst. i.e. I prepared myself for the thought that possibly, my husband could have anger problems and hulk out and beat me or something (see that's a prepared person right there).


4. I prepared myself for "the change," the transition that a man goes through when he upgrades from boyfriend to husband. 

I heard it was ugly. I heard they forget what flowers are. I heard romance is a thing of the past. And I prepared accordingly.


I'm trying to say I was READY. And by ready I mean I was scared. I was fickle and I was darn picky. And when I met my husband, I didn't even consider marrying him. I was closed off, I was waiting for the "perfect one," the one where you know.


But not like how other people know, where it's super annoying, but how I would know.


We would click. We'd be in sync. We'd like each other's stuff and feed off each other and we wouldn't even annoy other people with our lovey dovey stuff we'd be so cool. That's how I thought it would be.


And I was wrong. But that's okay.


And I'm not going to tell you how I knew my husband was meant for me, because I think that's such a unique, personal experience (AND SO DIFFERENT FOR EACH PERSON!!) that putting mine down would make someone out there think that theirs should be like mine. And it shouldn't. It should be your own.


But there is something I want to say.


Marriage is so much more about you as a person than you as "twain".


I thought my husband needed to be smart and good looking and strong and funny and have a perfect jawline and eyes that sparkled like the sea and have an Australian accent (and yes, I did put that on a list once). And then I made one of those "real" lists. The list where we put what he actually HAS to have.


Strong testimony
Obedience to the Gospel
Love kids
yada
yada
yada


I'm not saying those aren't important or that you shouldn't have things you won't settle less on, I'm saying this:


What are you going to be like in marriage?


I spent so much time over-analyzing who my spouse would be that I never took the time to see if I would be a good wife.
Could I cook? Sure
Could I clean? Decently
.....is there anything else?


YES! Yes there is!!!


I got married and I found out so many things about myself that I hadn't known before!


1. I protect my heart! Even from my husband!

I was so worried about that day when he hulked out on me that whenever I got frustrated or upset, I just shut down and wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't let him in, wouldn't tell him what was wrong or anything. And that was so hard on him!


2. I put unfair standards on him! 

I had, for so long, told myself that I would be in a "perfect" relationship, that if he didn't do the dishes I would break down and act like he hated me and he didn't respect me and we probably were going to get divorced. NO, SIR. 

Everyone wants that relationship where the man loves the wife soooo much that he even does the dishes for her (or the laundry or the vacuuming, whatever your "thing" is), but just because he doesn't, is not an indication of his love for you!


3. I wasn't ready to be alone. 

My husband lived thousands of miles from my family, so when we got married, I moved away, and even though I thought I was ready for that, I wasn't. Not having friends or family around you puts a big burden on you as a couple because he is really and truly all you have. Now I think it's a blessing because you have to lean on each other, BUT, I turned mine around and put that big burden on my husband to fill, totally and completely by himself.
CONFESSION: A husband cannot replace a mother or a sister. They can do so many things, but rarely that. And it's okay too. Just don't think that, because you're sad and miss your family, it's all your husband's fault.


4. I thought because I had bad days or sad days, it was all my husband's fault and our marriage probably wasn't going to work. 

SO. NOT. TRUE. And telling yourself that/telling your husband that, will really and truly break your marriage.


I think so many times these days we figure out that marriage is hard and we secretly think it shouldn't be, or that we were different from the mold, or our hard was supposed to be different from this kind of hard. And then we get sad, we get frustrated, we think this is how the rest of our life is going to be and we suddenly want out.


It may take ten minutes, it may take ten years, but there will come a moment that your spouse will do something, or (more likely) NOT do something, and you will look at him and think  "wow, you're kind of a jerk" or "wow, I don't think I can live with that" or "wow, he doesn't know me at all. Like at all." or "wow, we aren't in sync. We will never be in sync and I don't even have family near to make me feel some sort of sync-ness."


It was all very dramatic for me, because I refused to believe a marriage is boring in any way, and I twisted it all around and let it eat at me. I wasn't prepared to work hard and give and sacrifice. Thankfully, my husband was. But that was another thing I learned.


5. I'm so super selfish! Like really selfish. Bad. 

My Mom used to call me high maintenance and I never believed her, until I got married. And then I did. Because it was true. And I saw it.


Now I want to be very clear; in the end, marriage IS about the two of you. BUT, so much of my marriage is about me individually. 

How I'm doing that day. How I'm feeling. How accepting am I of what's happening around me. Is today going to be a good day? Am I going to see the good in things?

 You experience a vast amount of things together; the birth of a child, the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one. But, just as important, you experience them individually and how you choose to react to them greatly affects your relationship and how it's going to grow.


You know that saying, "when the mom is happy everyone is happy." Well it's true. And oddly enough, you control how happy you are.


I'm not trying to say that you can't be unhappy, I'm not saying you shouldn't be picky or that there aren't things your spouse needs to work on.


So much of my life was spent day dreaming of my prince charming, only to have those dreams shattered by reality and to then turn bitter because of this, that I never thought to look inside myself and see if I was prepared for what a real marriage entailed.


Because marriage IS hard. And it's not always your husband's fault.