MX Columns
mX Column: Lessons from Marriage
It’s my first wedding anniversary today. I can hardly believe a year has flown by, but at the same time it seems almost a lifetime ago.
I’m acutely aware that each anniversary is cause for celebration – particularly when statistically speaking, there’s at least a 40% chance that any given couple may not stay married forever.
What I wanted to do was to share what I had learned after a year of marriage. But, to be completely honest, I think I’m still trying to figure all that out.
Bridget Jones coined the ‘Smug Married’ term for us, instantly pitting singletons against marrieds but I wouldn’t believe it for one second.
You don’t get all the answers just because you’ve signed a marriage certificate.
Before you ever walk down the aisle, there is this perception that once you get married, your life will be sorted out once and for all.
I’m guilty of almost always having big expectations. Snow White and Cinderella have been drumming it into me all my life. You grow up, you fall in love with a handsome prince and you get married. Then (here comes the best part) you live Happily Ever After. The end.
Funnily enough, my housekeeping skills didn’t magically transform overnight (apparently you aren’t automatically bestowed them when the ring is slipped on the finger) and our petty arguments didn’t give way to the marital bliss I had anticipated.
I was brought back to earth smack bang in the middle of my honeymoon last year. The first few days were blissful; idyllic beach, cocktails at sunset and a poolside resort room – all nothing short of perfection.
Then the food poisoning kicked in. Not me, my new husband. Poor thing. But still – the image of him hurling up into the toilet bowl wasn’t in the mental honeymoon-brochure I’d been cultivating in my head since I first married off my Barbie and Ken all those years ago.
My dream honeymoon wasn’t stacking up.
Of course, the same lessons needed to be relearned once we came back home and realised that we weren’t automatically happy just because we’d gotten married.
If you wanted to become a karate master, or learn Mandarin, you’d understand that acquiring those skills will take a good deal of effort, energy and time. But marriage is sold to us as something that happens quite naturally once you’ve found your “true love”.
It simply can’t work that way.
Because as wonderful as marriage is, the reality is that you’re still trying to fit two completely separate beings together into one life.
So, at the end of one year of marriage all I can say is that I still feel like a novice. But here’s to continuing the learning process – and I can’t imagine anyone better to do that with than Den.
Related Posts
Will Marriage Always Have a Place in Society?
Marriage is Good For Your Health!… Until It’s Not
The Secret to Hugh Jackman’s Happy Marriage
Tags: 
Writer, dating columnist, wife, coffee addict, foodie, fashionista... Melburnian through and through. Muser, dancer, blogger, tweeter. Likes to get her head on telly now and again. Sleeper, dreamer, a sucker for romance. And of course... a cheap date.
Discussion
One comment for “mX Column: Lessons from Marriage”
Post a comment
Categories
Been happily married and unhappily married…
Happily married takes more work, but more rewards… Best wishes for the day to you both