Marriage reveals just how selfish you really are, a painful realization on your own time, and twice as nice when there’s someone else observing your utter self-absorption. Marriage sanctifies. It shows you things about yourself you didn’t know were there – things that aren’t always pretty. In my own first year of marriage, I learned the following five things that were hard to swallow.
Welcome to the ‘Confessions of a Newlywed’ blog series! If you are new to the blog, welcome! This series queues off The Other Virgin Diaries series, spawned by the post I Waited Until My Wedding Night to Lose My Virginity. In these posts I will be sharing how I prepared for marriage, how I was NOT prepared for marriage, and what I’ve learned along the way as full time career woman and wife of one year. These posts are a ‘me to you’ story of my experiences. Read my favorite marriage blogs for advice from veteran wives: Time Warp Wife, Unveiled Wife, and Women Living Well.
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Sometimes, marriage advice is depressing.
Before I got married, I asked a lot of questions. I wanted to know what to expect; I wanted to prepare and plan and make the transition as easy as possible. As I asked my questions, however, I wasn’t always pleased with the answers. Some were downright discouraging.
Does this have to be true for ME? I wondered. Matter of fact – it didn’t! Below are four things I was told as an engaged woman that were proven false in my first year of marriage.
1. You can’t plan sex – it’s supposed to be spontaneous.
I’ve sat at many a lingerie shower to hear wives declare the utter impossibility of planning when to have sex.
“It has to be spontaneous!” They exclaim.
But the strategist that I am had to wonder: why do I read so many posts and comments by women, a few years down the road, who seem to think intimacy is a duty and a bore? I didn’t want that happen.
I had heard the phrase, “Sex begins at breakfast”, meaning that your attitude throughout the day, and how you treat your spouse, has great influence on what happens later that night. And it’s definitely true! But because I found this true – and because I knew women take longer to ‘warm up’ to the idea – planning when to have sex seemed like a very logical solution to the ‘problem’ of unwilling wives.
Since I was very young, I knew I wanted to be married. There’s a picture of me at six years old, sitting on my mom’s cedar chest with a napkin on my head, in a white dress, holding a bouquet of fake flowers in two chubby hands. I always wanted to be a bride!
But since most women marry in their mid- to late twenties, and I had plenty of time on my hands. After an epiphany at age 21, I realized I wanted to be married – but was woefully unprepared. I commissioned myself to develop habits that would, at the very least, make the transition to marriage a little easier when that day finally came.
In this post I am simply talking about respect, though Paul had just finished a discussion of submission (read my post Biblical Submission is Dangerous for my thoughts on that topic). Respect is a command from God. That means acting in a respectful manner even when I do not feel respectful toward Mr. M. I learned this the hard way, but I’ve found, as I’ve grown in the discipline of respect, that changing my manner improves arguments, cultivates good communication, and affirms my love for him better than anything else I can do.
Dear girl,
You’ve stopped on the breakneck journey of life to read this post, and I’m glad you did. For the moment you’re here, I want you to set down the two suitcases you have in your hands – the one called Father, and the other called Mom.
I want you to set them aside and hear something true.
Every person on this earth has parents, whether that term refers simply to their biological origins or if it has the deeper relational meaning of a family tie. You have a mother and dad. Some of you don’t know either of them. Some of you lost one to death or divorce. Some of you were hurt by them, abused by them, or neglected by them. Some feel you can’t meet their expectations. Some of you were babied and enabled by them.
Our parents have a profound effect on our lives, and their choices have the power to influence us for years to come.
But dear girl, your life is not the sum of your parents’ failure or success.
You are neither a trophy nor a disappointment.
Your identity is not based on your last name or your parents’ actions. They are imperfect people, sinners just like you and me. But their flaws should not dictate our value, or we will go through life measuring our worth against the opinions of people instead of the opinion of God.
Some of us had parents who did things well: they loved us, they trained us, they taught us, they cared about us. But those of us with this story carry another burden: the burden of expectation. Just as some carry the weight of their parents’ poor decisions or disapproval, others carry the weight of comparison. They think their marriage is supposed to look just like their parents’ did. They think their lives, homes, and children are supposed to be just like their childhood. And when it isn’t – as most assuredly will be the case – they are assaulted with discontent and disillusionment.