Year One's Life Lessons

In honor of our anniversary, I wanted to write a list of the things I learned in my first year of marriage. 

1. Marriage isn't hard. Shocker, right? Maybe you're thinking "just wait" or "you're sugar-coating marriage". I'm honest when I say marriage isn't hard, contrary to popular belief or advice. What is hard is hurting the feelings of someone you love, or communicating emotions and ideas to someone when you don't fully understand them yourself. What's hard is having needs and wants that directly counter your love's needs and wants, or learning the balance between compromising and being too self-sacrificing. Whats hard is feeling misunderstood, confused, or disappointed. 

But these things are not confined to a marriage relationship; they're common struggles between any two people who spend time together. Interacting with others is hard, and there will be few others who you will interact with more than your spouse. This can intensify the hardships of interpersonal relationships purely from quantity. But it has nothing to do with being married--it has everything to do with being unique and different from another person, yet trying to get along with them. In fact, I think marriage makes this easier because both parties are trying to love the other person as best as possible. This combined effort is not always felt in other relationships.

2. Gender is an important aspect in marriage, but it should not be defining to the point of confining. I'm grateful I'm a woman and I'm grateful I married a man. Beyond the biological aspects, I'm grateful for the roles our gender creates in our marriage. In many ways, we are very traditional--my husband comes home from his nine-to-five job and I have dinner ready after being at home for most, if not all the day. He presides in our home, and I look forward to our children and my role as their mother. But it took me a while to break away from the stereotypes in the way I viewed Stephen. There were things I assumed about him because everyone says that's what men are like. I knew when I married him he was special and unique, but I needed to correct myself from making stereotypical assumptions. 

For instance, my husband is very nurturing, enjoys just cuddling, and doesn't mind helping out with chores. There are times where I'm more interested in sports than he is (which is not to say I'm all that interested in sports), or prefer driving faster than he does, or would rather not talk about emotions or how something makes me feel. And that's perfectly fine. I do not fit into the feminine stereotype completely just as much as Stephen doesn't fit into the masculine stereotype completely. That's not to say I'm more than happy to let him kill the spiders, and that he knows I need to cry sometimes just for the sake of crying. We have respect for each other as an individual, separate from our gender, yet fully appreciate the aspects of our gender which help to shape us and our marriage.

3. Marrying Stephen made my dreams come true, but it did not get rid of my problems. There is a lot of bliss in the life of a newlywed. There's the excitement of the new step in life and the potential it holds. Dreaming about my future with Stephen was and is one of my favorite pastimes. I can look back and be grateful the phase in my life of eating ice cream while crying over a chick-flick with my roommates has past. Being single was full of lonely nights and unfulfilled days which no longer plague me. But being single was not my only hardship in life pre-Stephen. Even after getting married, school was hard, my health made things challenging, and my concern over my thin wallet didn't disappear.

I am forever grateful I no longer have to face my challenges alone, but that doesn't mean my challenges are any less challenging. My life is better since being married--don't mistake this--but there are still times when I'm upset about something and need a chick flick and ice cream to cope. While Stephen wishes he could take away all my problems and always make me happy, life isn't conducive to this. And Stephen has struggles too. Many, I can't help him with either, especially when it comes to programming. And while we can't solve each other's problems, we can support and encourage each other. We can cheer each other up in ther ways, and still have times where bliss overcomes reality. It's a fairy tale where our happily ever after is not void of struggles or problems, but it is nonetheless magical.

4. The internet can't tell me how to have a better marriage--only my spouse can. Growing up, I loved lifestyle quizzes. What does my favorite ice cream flavor say about me? Am I more of an introvert or an extrovert? Can I tell how much a boy likes me by what kind of flower he gives me? What should I be when I grow up? I was a sucker for any and all tidbits about my life I could glean from answering a, b, c, or d. But what really knew me the best was me. And what really knows my husband best is my husband. And if I want to make my husband, he's going to have better insight than the internet. 

The top five or ten or fifty tips to have a happy marriage are not bad or evil by any means--they just might be wrong. This correlates with my gender stereotyping. When Pinterest or Facebook held the secret things every husband wanted or needed, I began obsessing and stressing over their advice. It took me long enough to realize that even if the internet said my husband needed this or that, it wasn't always accurate. Thoughts like complementing him, or praying for him, or other nice gestures are good, but maybe my husband isn't feeling the lack of complements, but rather just needs time to mentally transition once he gets home from work. It became a lot easier to meet his needs when I asked him what his needs were rather than some quiz or advice column. 

5. Stephen is the perfect husband--for me. Beyond thinking the world of Stephen, I was impressed before we were married at how perfect he seemed to be. I would ask him if he were real or not, because I knew I couldn't dream up a better man than him. Through our marriage, I've learned he is not always perfect, which is a really good thing. He has flaws and shortcomings just like I do. But somehow, we balance each other and can learn and grow from our flaws together. There are little things he says and does that make me the happiest person in the world, where another girl would not appreciate the same kinds of affections. And that's great for me.

There is no such thing as the perfect man, even though I thought I was marrying him a year ago. There's no such thing as a perfect relationship or a perfect marriage, but there can be excellence, and I have found that with Stephen. He is an excellent man, and we have an excellent relationship and marriage. There's a lot less pressure when we have the understanding that perfection is not achievable, but excellence is. A year ago, I wanted to be the perfect wife and never do anything wrong--that didn't last long. I had to change my perspective on what my real goal was--happiness for both of us. That's helped me be alright with my flaws and be alright with Stephen having flaws (though I still argue he doesn't have many). He and I are not perfect, but we are perfect for each other, and that's what matters.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart! One year down, eternity to go!