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Friday, November 28, 2008
Love, Marriage and Divorce
Johnathan and I got married recently. I know, big news, right?
At work, this seems to be the only thing about me that anyone cares to talk about. “Hello, married lady!” is how many people greeted me after I got back. Some people still greet me that way over two months later. It’s a strange thing to realize that where once you were valued for your opinion and discussion, now you are merely an excuse to talk about weddings and marriage.
Maybe this sounds somehow embittered of me, but married life is not some magical new way of being. Married life is… well, it’s the same, but with cheaper insurance and slightly modified finances. Not one person who I’ve asked has admitted that married life was really that much different for them after they settled in. The ones for whom it was different are most likely the ones who did not live together prior to getting married. I wonder about why I keep getting asked this question.
This isn’t to say that I don’t like being married. Being married is not the problem in this case. It’s not a bad situation. It’s just… well, the same as it was before. Johnathan and I didn’t change our perception of one another, we didn’t change our attitudes toward each other. We didn’t marry each other and expect anything to change drastically. If it had, I think I would have been disappointed. We’re the same people we were before we got married, except now we share a last name.
When Johnathan and I got married, we weren’t doing it to fit in with our peers, or because of some unrelenting pressure to get married or something along those lines. We did it to declare before our friends and family that we were making a lifelong committment to one another, and to share in the joy of that declaration with the people we love. Isn’t that what getting married is really about? If it’s not, I really think that’s what it should be. Our wedding day wasn’t the “best day of my life,” and frankly it would be pretty damning if it were. It was a very nice day and it was nice to see all of our family together. I hope the best days of our lives are yet to come.
The situation that I’ve encountered that might actually be worse than people asking “How’s married life?” is when the divorcees ask me how it is, then after I explain to them how much I hate that question now, they have long conversations about their married lives and how stupid they were. Obviously people make mistakes. My own parents are divorced, as are Johnathan’s. I am not ignorant of the fact that one in every two marriages ends in divorce. Why they feel the need to try to scare me (trying to ease their tirades with, “Now, I’m not trying to scare you!”) into feeling like my marriage is going to fail just like theirs did is beyond me. I understand that divorce is a possibility, but that doesn’t mean that our marriage is doomed to end that way.
I’m sure they’re all well-meaning, but I guess I just don’t understand the sentiments. It’s enough to make me wish I’d kept my nuptual news to myself at work. Being married is just fine, but I’m the same person that I was on September 22. I wish people would realize that.
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Mike and I lived together for nearly three years prior to our marriage. Though we were married in June, people still always ask us “How’s married life?” Our response is always something along the lines of: “…same as engaged life?”
I don’t really get why people expect it to be so different. It bothers me almost as much as “Bachelor Parties” being called your “last night of freedom”. I just don’t get it.
Amy — November 28, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
My former boss/now co-worker at the library asks me the same questions every time we talk that he has been asking me since we got back from our honeymoon. “So, how’s married life? Are you fighting yet?”
Every time I glare at him, fight the urge to tell him that perhaps he should have taken it as a bad sign when he and his now-ex-wife fought their way through their honeymoon. Hell, perhaps he should have realized he was gay when he did all the flower arrangements for their wedding and then they could have avoided all the fighting and hoopla and gone straight to him being with Doug and perhaps then not asking me stupid questions all the time.
I am with you, I get irritated with it. OMG, we’ve been married for four months. It’s the same as when we were dating/engaged, except now we live together and sleep together. What a big change.
Illusion — November 28, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
I can’t imagine it’d be much different. Even though I’m not married yet (and won’t be for two more years), how much different can it be? You’re already living together, sleeping together, learned each others nuances, and developed a routine. Marriage is the commitment for life, like you said.
Quite honestly, I see the day I get married as hopefully being the worst day of our married life. I’d expect it to get better year after year, much like our engaged relationship has.
Good thoughts.
Dani — December 2, 2008 @ 3:04 pm