We've been married for 6 months now, and in honor of the occasion, I've taken some time to reflect and share what small knowledge I've gained in
tying myself to the wonderful man I call my husband:
1. Forgiveness
He
makes me better at apologizing. I’m stubborn, and hate being wrong. But he
makes me want to turn inward and examine what I’m doing wrong, and I've discovered that the ability to be humble and apologize is like a muscle, the
more you work it out, the easier it gets. Being married to such a humble,
gracious, and forgiving man has made me that much more determined to turn obstinacy
(and an unhealthy pride in being “strong-willed”) into obedience to my savior
and respect towards my husband.
2. Contraception
Birth control is the best drug around. Not to be too personal, but no periods,
cramping, and back aches? Monthly costs associated with said syndrome, vanished.
Ability to, uh, do what you want, whenever you want? All for the monthly cost
of $0. Yes please.
3. Sex
On the
same note, when it comes to sex, let me just say this: we've been working on a
“once-or-more-a-day” record. And neither of us likes to break records. Both
studies and personal advice from married friends stress the benefits of having
regular sex, and I think it’s important to continually make it a high priority.
Yeah, I know we’re still smack dab in the “honeymoon phase,” and don’t actually
have any trouble mustering up the energy, but still, nothing wrong with long
term planning, right? Plus, you know what they say, “Sex is like pizza, even
when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.” Sex is better than anything I could
have imagined, and I only become more and more frustrated with the world’s
disfigurement of such an amazing gift from God.
I've also learned that there’s nothing like a sweet husband
to kick the low self-image demons in the face. Since 15 years old I've struggled with body image, mentally wringing my hands every time I gained a
pound, letting it affect my self-worth to an unhealthy degree. Even as I got
older, spending time in prayer and successfully reaching a size I felt
comfortable in, I felt like I’d reached my limit, a
“this-is-as-good-as-it’s-gonna-get” sort of feeling. But God wasn't finished
with his healing, and for some reason he decided to give me an adoring husband
who’s way too good at consistently letting me know he finds me beautiful, and
as time goes by, the old demons have faded even more. Now when I feel like a fatty
for eating way too many cheeze-its in one sitting, it’s a shallower sort of
disparagement, one that makes me want to be healthier, but not at the cost of
hating the body God has given me.
4. Affection
Coming up on 6 months of marriage and almost 2 years of friendship, and I’m
continually astounded how each day I fall more in love with him. He persistently
overwhelms me with his patience and love. I can’t help but think about the term
used by Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing:
"I will, in the
interim, undertake one of Hercules' labors, which is, to bring Signior Benedick
and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th'one with th'other."
Act 2, Scene 1.
A mountain of affection is
precisely the feeling marriage begets. It’s massive in its scope and therefore
never hidden from the skyline; and even if it gets dark and becomes harder to
see, mountains are immobile things, and there’s no doubt it will stay firmly
standing even in the darkest of weather.
5. Conflict
I
love how our fights seem to follow a downward slope as time goes by. Each day
we learn how to better serve the other person in the midst of stress and
misunderstandings. Being married to your complete opposite can be difficult,
but more importantly, extremely rewarding and it forces you to grow and update
your own way of innate thinking. One revelation we had is that, as an ENFP, he
needs more validation and encouragement in general and on a more consistent
basis. I, as an ISTJ, am a more internally motivated person and need less vocal
approval. That’s all well and good, except Jon is naturally good at vocally
affirming, whereas I can forget to voice my thoughts, and he’s left feeling
ignored. I don’t give him enough; he gives me more than I need. I've found that
I have to purposely pull myself out of my internal state and make sure to
acknowledge and affirm more than it would naturally occurred to me to do so. On
the flip side, he has promised to try and give me the benefit of the doubt and
realize that, even if I haven’t responded to everything, he should trust that
it’s not out of diffidence. Because I honestly do love every observation and
witticism that boy comes up with.
6. Silly Advice
There
seems to be a plethora of both tongue-in-cheek and serious advice doled out to
engaged couples consisting of the cliché “make sure to discuss whether or not
the toilet paper goes under or over the roll” variety. Being married, I've decided this is useless and silly advice. In telling couples to identify all
the little idiosyncrasies of one another in order to avoid conflict, it feels
like missing the point. The advice should be to instead practice selflessness,
patience, and support and work on denying the urge to give into trivial
irritability. When I see articles such as “10 Things You Must Agree On Before
Being Married” and the list includes whether the toothpaste cap goes on or not,
the pettiness of it all is frustrating. All in all, I've found it extremely
easy living with my husband, and household duties and chores don’t really cause
much conflict at all, but when it does, holding on to uptight notions of how
little things should be done is unhelpful and can even be hurtful.
There have been a variety of other lessons and growing pains in our 2 year relationship, from friendship to dating to marriage, and overall, it's the greatest experience I've had in my 23 years of life. I look forward to weathering both the good and the bad with my love as the years go by, and deepening my appreciation for God's blessings in my life. Jon: I love spending every minute with you and marrying you was the best decision I've ever made. :)
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