Marriage is Hard
When I got married, I thought it would be everything I wanted it to be...all the sex I wanted, affection, attentiveness, loyalty, dedication, etc...My ideas were a little extreme but I knew that at the time but I thought I'd be relatively close. Unfortunately I was wrong. First, a little back story...my wife and I met in church and our courtship lasted for about a year. This was awesome because our common love for the Lord, I thought, would translate nicely into our marriage. Here's the downside of that, courtship in the church allows for many of the guarantees you'd expect in marriage to go untested. We had the conversations and she promptly and consistently said all the things I wanted to hear. I was convinced she was being genuine and I went along with all of it.
Things began to unravel almost immediately after we got married. She didn't want to try this or do that...she would almost immediately tell me that I was her first serious relationship and she was simply learning her way. I bought that...it sounded feasible. So I gave it some time to mature. My patience soon turned into frustration as it didn't seem like she was making any strides at all. It seemed like she was buying time in hopes that I would simply stop putting demands on her. I went through a myriad of feelings at that time from anger to hatred to annoyance to bitterness. The first major pitfall was I began to feel as though I had been duped. It felt like she played the role when we were dating when she knew all along that she would not be the woman she knew I wanted in marriage. This pitfall lasted for about 4 years.
4 years of being internally anger at yourself and your wife is a really long time to hold a grudge but I also grew in that time. My father left my mother when I was very young and I was determined to give it my all. In previous relationships, I would have bailed a long time ago but this is marriage so I thought I should persevere. I changed my approach, I wanted to understand who she was and how she approached being married....Know your enemy, so to speak. So instead of anger and frustration, I tried to inquire and define...it was a daunting task, I even went through a period when I thought my wife was a closet lesbian. But my patience and insight did lead me to a few revelations about her and her approach to marriage.
1. She was trying it - When most people get married, they understand the commitment and sacrifice that will be needed to build and sustain and long relationship. Others however make it more simple than that...Some people simply say,m " I love him and I love being around him, so I think we should get married." And that is the extend to which they envision their future, I like it now so I'll commit to it now...it may be a forever commitment but I can only go off of what I feel right now. That's my wife...Mrs. Live in the Moment. So all those expectations we conveyed in our engagement which she said she was all about...what she was really saying is, "Right now I think I would do all those things but I can really speak in regards to what I do not know but I know I want to get married so I think I'd do everything he wants" Not so much deceiving as speaking from a lack of knowledge.
2. Our love is different - This was a big one for me. I had been in numerous relationships and she had only been in a few. I understood my heart and I knew for the most part what was need to make a relationship work. Her understand was and still is very...."BASIC". We are married, she is loyal, she cooks dinner, and give me sex...those are the basics and to her, that is the extend of her emotional range. Mine is filled with affection, endearment, communication, compromise, sacrifice, desire...just to name a few. But hers is not and for a long time, I thought she was withholding it from me. I thought she certainly possesses this depth but she is not opening it up to me. It made me feel as though I was not the man to bring it out in her and we were ill matched. It made me so angry. In time, I realized she did not have that depth because her life was not filled with those emotions, heartache, love, and lust that had shaped my life and love. I'd wished I discerned this prior to our marriage because it was so obvious in retrospect. I misinterpreted he attentiveness as desire and I mistook her innocence as virtue. But it was all naivety and I missed it.
3. My Projection - I wanted her to be all the things I wanted and I projected those qualities upon her. She didn't give me any reason to believe it couldn't be real but she also didn't give me any reason it could be real. She was really figuring herself out and that allowed me to paint any image on her canvas I wanted. I never verified, it was so much easier to believe she would be all of these things because, honestly at the time, it's what I needed. I had previously gotten out of a 3 year relationship with I girl I would have married but it just didn't work out. She loved me in a way that was very shallow but she was FINE so it lasted 3 years. The attraction masked a lot of issues I had with her but she was the type of woman a politician gets married to...all about the business, not so much about the man. I saw that and we eventually ended it but it made the desire to find "That Kind of Woman" extremely important to me. So much so that I think any woman I'd given my heart to next would've been the one.
I finally realized my hand in the state of my marriage. Things are better because I've thrown out all of my expectations and she has come to understand what type of woman she is. It's a 70-30 marriage with me holding up the 70 in hope that she will work her way to the middle...but that expectation isn't really there anymore. I learned to supplement my needs with other things...not other women, just other interest. The other women thing is a funny story that I'll write about some day. Marriage is hard but sometimes you have to love the one your with. I went through stages of bailing on this but the expectation of finding something better is similar to expectation of my wife changing. I at least have an understanding with my wife and the possibility with another is just not that enticing...but I do think about it in difficult times. Like I said....Marriage is hard.
Things began to unravel almost immediately after we got married. She didn't want to try this or do that...she would almost immediately tell me that I was her first serious relationship and she was simply learning her way. I bought that...it sounded feasible. So I gave it some time to mature. My patience soon turned into frustration as it didn't seem like she was making any strides at all. It seemed like she was buying time in hopes that I would simply stop putting demands on her. I went through a myriad of feelings at that time from anger to hatred to annoyance to bitterness. The first major pitfall was I began to feel as though I had been duped. It felt like she played the role when we were dating when she knew all along that she would not be the woman she knew I wanted in marriage. This pitfall lasted for about 4 years.
4 years of being internally anger at yourself and your wife is a really long time to hold a grudge but I also grew in that time. My father left my mother when I was very young and I was determined to give it my all. In previous relationships, I would have bailed a long time ago but this is marriage so I thought I should persevere. I changed my approach, I wanted to understand who she was and how she approached being married....Know your enemy, so to speak. So instead of anger and frustration, I tried to inquire and define...it was a daunting task, I even went through a period when I thought my wife was a closet lesbian. But my patience and insight did lead me to a few revelations about her and her approach to marriage.
1. She was trying it - When most people get married, they understand the commitment and sacrifice that will be needed to build and sustain and long relationship. Others however make it more simple than that...Some people simply say,m " I love him and I love being around him, so I think we should get married." And that is the extend to which they envision their future, I like it now so I'll commit to it now...it may be a forever commitment but I can only go off of what I feel right now. That's my wife...Mrs. Live in the Moment. So all those expectations we conveyed in our engagement which she said she was all about...what she was really saying is, "Right now I think I would do all those things but I can really speak in regards to what I do not know but I know I want to get married so I think I'd do everything he wants" Not so much deceiving as speaking from a lack of knowledge.
2. Our love is different - This was a big one for me. I had been in numerous relationships and she had only been in a few. I understood my heart and I knew for the most part what was need to make a relationship work. Her understand was and still is very...."BASIC". We are married, she is loyal, she cooks dinner, and give me sex...those are the basics and to her, that is the extend of her emotional range. Mine is filled with affection, endearment, communication, compromise, sacrifice, desire...just to name a few. But hers is not and for a long time, I thought she was withholding it from me. I thought she certainly possesses this depth but she is not opening it up to me. It made me feel as though I was not the man to bring it out in her and we were ill matched. It made me so angry. In time, I realized she did not have that depth because her life was not filled with those emotions, heartache, love, and lust that had shaped my life and love. I'd wished I discerned this prior to our marriage because it was so obvious in retrospect. I misinterpreted he attentiveness as desire and I mistook her innocence as virtue. But it was all naivety and I missed it.
3. My Projection - I wanted her to be all the things I wanted and I projected those qualities upon her. She didn't give me any reason to believe it couldn't be real but she also didn't give me any reason it could be real. She was really figuring herself out and that allowed me to paint any image on her canvas I wanted. I never verified, it was so much easier to believe she would be all of these things because, honestly at the time, it's what I needed. I had previously gotten out of a 3 year relationship with I girl I would have married but it just didn't work out. She loved me in a way that was very shallow but she was FINE so it lasted 3 years. The attraction masked a lot of issues I had with her but she was the type of woman a politician gets married to...all about the business, not so much about the man. I saw that and we eventually ended it but it made the desire to find "That Kind of Woman" extremely important to me. So much so that I think any woman I'd given my heart to next would've been the one.
I finally realized my hand in the state of my marriage. Things are better because I've thrown out all of my expectations and she has come to understand what type of woman she is. It's a 70-30 marriage with me holding up the 70 in hope that she will work her way to the middle...but that expectation isn't really there anymore. I learned to supplement my needs with other things...not other women, just other interest. The other women thing is a funny story that I'll write about some day. Marriage is hard but sometimes you have to love the one your with. I went through stages of bailing on this but the expectation of finding something better is similar to expectation of my wife changing. I at least have an understanding with my wife and the possibility with another is just not that enticing...but I do think about it in difficult times. Like I said....Marriage is hard.
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