Wedding Bells or Ding Dongs?

In reply to this post I spewed forth the following thoughts. She is one of an un-engaged couple in a group of friends that have many weddings coming up.

DO NOT let "everyone else is doing it" be your motivation for for bungie jumping or getting married - or anything else for that matter.

Face the fact that your friends are all getting married. Remember they have probably been couples longer than you two have. Even if they haven't it just means they are either more sure of their love than you two are yet or they are making huge mistakes. Then forget it! Don't let it bother you. It's just life, weddings, family reunions and funerals are the big three. Enjoy them together!

Take all the time you want to get to know each other. 3 months is just a drop in the bucket, especially if you are shooting for FOREVER. Vegetables will grow to ripeness in just 90 days. So will annuals, like marigolds. They are only flowers and veggies that die off every year. A tree takes much longer. You want strong roots for your love and it takes shared experiences and communication to put them down. It takes time.

When you are committed but unpapered you both have the mental attitude that you are free to do as you please with very few limits by the partner. This should be the way marriage is but it's difficult to maintain in our strictly puritain society.

Relationships do change when you get married. The way I figured it out was you get the "Now I'm the "Wife/Husband" complexes. This is where you start doing all the things you believe the "Wife/Husband" SHOULD do as defined by your experience, your peers and current social expectations. You go into "I can't do anything without checking with mate first" mode and feel limited or trapped in your choices.

You have to redefine your expectations of each other to suit yourselves and not society. This takes conversation, true verbal intercourse, to reach what you truely expect from each other as far as spending money, going out, stopping on the way home, etc.. You are not a boss and an employee, you are vice-presidents, equals, and your goal is to keep the president happy. That is the Unit, The Love.

Another change is just the roommate conflicts. This is anything the other person does that bothers you having to do with home maintenence and chores. Compromise. If I do the tp it's under, if he does the tp it's over, no griping by other party. If you really care that much about the issue make a point of always doing it yourself. Chores suck but have to be done. Do the nasty ones together, divide the rest by strenght, time available and a need to get it done basis.

You both get a new family to learn about and love. You get the full range from the one you really get along with to the one that makes your teeth hurt from clenching your jaw. This can also include the famous middle man positon between the mate and any family member that doesn't get along as well as you would like so you are always interpreting between them. Remember this is an OUTSIDE influence, not a core relationship issue.

You have both lived on your own and now you are sharing your spaces. I prefer to get a new place and divide it up rather than moving into a mate's place. There is too much previous ownership there and you feel like you don't have any real space of your own. He moved your stuff, you touched his CD's...all seemingly huge violations of solitude and privacy that you don't have anymore. You have to decide where the limits are, sure, get in my purse but stay out of the desk Don't touch my stereo, computer, do help yourself to the money in my wallet.

It's a major transistion to a new universe and if your bond is not strong enough to make you want to work through the changes together then it won't work well at all. It is hard to work this through without several confrontations because you find your self and your mate doing things you NEVER did when you were dating. You used to invite people home for a drink or a movie, but now, if you forget to warn the mate, you might discover she has her mom and her sister over already. They don't mix well with drinking buddies. This creates stress. Maybe it's walking around in your underware. You didn't do that in front of mate before marriage and you find out they think it's a white trash thing to do. More stress. You just have to work these things through.

I always watched football with the guys. Make up, hair do's, kids stories, receipes, that bores me so hanging in the kitchen was no fun. I got married. I tried to do dishes in the kitchen with the women. I would get all freaked out at their teeny, tiny small talk and be screaming inside to see what the score was but felt I HAD to act like a "real" wife. I would be angry because, if the men had helped, we could have all watched the game and so sniped at the mate. He, of course, saw no reason to change "tradition", i.e., men laying around talking about how much they ate and the new quarterback, and the women doing the chores.

My cure - I no longer do dishes when I have company. I watch the game or whatever we are doing. We ALL put the food away and stack or soak the dishes then enjoy the movie or the game together. What it took to reach the cure - 2 marriages. By the third one I knew what the real problem was and implemented the solution before "tradition" got it's hooks into the mate or the kids. The real problem is I resent having to work while others sit on their butts that also enjoyed the fruits of my labor. So I sit on my butt now and there is no guilt or stress. After we all clean up together.

I do not believe the paper is worth printing out two copies of if both people are not committed to putting each other above EVERYTHING ELSE. For me, there is nothing more important than keeping "us" us. The really wonderful thing is that it's the same way for the mate. That is commitment. Two people, one goal. It's what the candle ceremony in many weddings is supposed to be, a symbol of two people forming one unit of love.

If there is a conflict between an event with my parents and one with my mate, the parents lose. Is work stessing the relationship? One of us gets a new job. If he has to move to BFE then I'm packing up to roll. There is NOTHING on this planet worth losing the love and respect of my mate. Not even my big, fat ego.

Someday you will be positive you want to stand in front of your friends and family and tell them that you are bound to another person by love and are joining your lives together. You will say it holding hands, with your eyes on each other and your heads up, proud that the other loves you and proud to tell everyone you love them.

What it does INSIDE you both is make you proud and happy that your partner wants all their friends, family, and the general public to know you are the chosen mate for life. It's not a validation of you as a human. Many single humans have made their lives mean something to the whole world by their actions or talents. And it is not just that you picked each other, people knew that when you dated. It is that you both want to tell your whole worlds that you picked each other FOREVER.

No matter what is in each past or what tomorrow brings, you are together. Think about that. We had step kids to get to know and support, we have had the house burn down, the mate unemployed, me down two years with wrist injuries, ok for 11 years, then a year with arthritis and, just a year later, three bad months with the heart problem. The mate has been ill. There were kids that ran away, kids that got in trouble at school and with the law, family members angry with us or at others in the family, mate unemployed again, car wreaks and break downs, stranded with kids in a snow storm, pets die, parents die, friends die. 20 years of whatever life could toss at us. Will you stay together through these things or cut and run?

Until you can BOTH mean it with all your heart, "I want to stay with you FOREVER, no matter what came before or what comes after", with NO reservations - wait.