I follow this girl on Instagram–I’m not even sure how I found her–but she’s young, maybe 25, and she’s been married a few years. I don’t know what she does as a day job, but she is always promoting this website she runs and writes for that promotes marriage and making it to your fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Which, I think, is a noble goal.
But mostly she just annoys me. I find myself rolling my eyes whenever she shares her marriage advice and encouragement.
You’ve been married a few years? CONGRATULATIONS. Tell me all your advice for making it to two years. Just what is your secret?
I can’t take anything she says serious, even if it is legit, because she hasn’t done anything worth sharing yet. She’s technically still in the honeymoon period. She might even be able to get her marriage annulled in certain states and then be able to claim she’s never been married before. (This could be incorrect, I’m way too lazy to look it up but I’m leaving it because I sometimes need to make up lies to prove my point. #Integrity)
I don’t want advice from her. Marriage, two years in, isn’t that hard. You know who I want to hear from? People who have kids and bills and full-time jobs and job disappointments and money worries and no time for sex and also, people who know how to still love someone who can’t shut a closet door to save his life.
That’s what I want to read.
At our two-year anniversary, we were mostly concerned with where we’d be going out to eat for dinner, which couch to buy for our empty living room, and if we could stay up all night watching House reruns and still function at our jobs the next day. (Answer: yes.)
I didn’t have any advice to give because it was easy.
Today is our ten-year anniversary and things are less easy. We are less patient with each other. We have more responsibilities and more places to be. We have more money but more needs to spend it on.
Am I qualified to give marriage advice yet? I don’t feel like I am. I think you should be good at something to give advice on it. Maybe at two years I would have felt blindly confident in my marriage skills and been full of helpful hints and encouragement. But now I’m a little more realistic and a lot less romantic (which is extreme because I was very un-romantic to begin with).
But if I was out shopping today and happened to run into you in the basket aisle (I currently need more baskets so this is a realistic scenario), here’s what I’d tell you about marriage:
Nothing brings out your most ugly flaws faster than marriage.
Seeing someone love you in spite of the ugly you just showed them will make you feel like your heart might explode.
You never know how much you can hate someone for an ill-timed fart until he does it on a stuffy airplane and you think you’re going to die from the smell or the annoyance, probably both at the same time.
Being a servant mostly involves dishes, laundry, trash, dirty floors, bathing kids, grocery shopping, paying bills, and scrubbing toilets.
Keeping your mouth shut can be the most loving decision you make all day. (No comment on how this is going.)
Love is nice but if you can’t forgive, you’re missing the point.
Don’t ever try to back up a camper with your spouse. Ever. Just stay in hotels forever.
Say “thank you” and “I love you” a lot. And mean it, try not to be sarcastic about it.
Sacrificing your pride to make your wife laugh is the best gift. Even if you make her promise not to tell anyone about it because you know she has a big mouth and no filter.
Timeouts are good for kids and spouses. Needing some time apart is okay.
Make sure you record your wedding ceremony and force your spouse to watch it multiple times on your anniversary every year.
Last piece: If someone is too full of advice for your relationship, ignore them. Unless it’s Jesus, listen to him.
I think the best thing about being young and dumb is you do crazy things like get married and buy houses and decide you’re responsible enough to have babies. There’s some kind of scary, blind ignorance in thinking you know how to do things.
Then you get to spend the rest of your lives realizing you know very little.
Chris Graham: thanks for being young and dumb with me. That was fun. I think our best years are still ahead of us though and I can’t wait to see where we go. I’m sure it will involve lots of eye rolling, sour candy, and mountains of maps. Love you, Crispy.
Happy Anniversary! My husband and I will celebrate 22 years of marriage this Saturday the 22nd. I am with you on the fact that I do not feel qualified to give marriage advice. I completely agree with you on your points about marriage. Especially the keeping your mouth shut part. Not about everything, but kind of like with kids, pick and choose your battles. We both have Friday and Monday off work because we planned a get away for just the two of us. Our 17 year old daughter still does most everything with us, which we love, but sometimes you need to get away just the two of you. And this morning? We had a lovely argument before heading in our separate directions to work. Love and friendship is difficult in marriage even when you’ve been at it this long. But we always work back towards each other and we both know we are totally committed to each other. I hope you guys have a great anniversary. And I love the fact that you share so much about your life and marriage. It makes me feel like I’m not alone out here in the big world. Thanks, Mary.
Congrats on twenty-two years, Maureen! I hope your time off was relaxing. Thanks for the encouragement! 🙂
I love this….all of it….in all its honest and truth!!
Thanks, Angela!
Happy Anniversary to you two! I am definitely not qualified to give marriage advice, now having a 17 year failed marriage under my belt. 🙁 We were young and dumb and thinking we knew everything…HAHAHAHAHA. so far from the truth. I still have no idea what i’m doing and now i’m gun shy and don’t see me attempting the marriage thing ever again. I admire couples that admit they aren’t perfect and they choose to be with their spouse every day. You love each other every day, some days you don’t like each other, and that’s ok. Your blog is my favorite. I love your honesty about everything. It’s refreshing and inspiring. Your NYC trip looked like a blast.
Thanks, Tam. And I’m sure you have lots of lessons from your marriage–it wasn’t a waste, I know that. (And our NYC trip was awesome, I’m hoping to share about it next week.) 🙂
Friday is our tenth and their are times I cannot believe we’ve made it this far, and others that we have just gotten started. We almost ended it our first year due to hitting some big challenges, but we made the conscious choice to stick it out and grow the hell up. It’s been pretty awesome since. Thanks for sharing your story and happy anniversary!
Thanks and congrats on your ten years too!
I follow the same couple or girl and I too agree…(at least I think it’s the same although their goal of the 50 is beating the 50% divorce rate) and I literally want to gag! When she posted a blog about reading your vows while being intimate literally made me spew my water everywhere. haha, but really. My parents were married for 42 years and my Dad just passed away two weeks ago. I look at them and they did absolutely everything right – they fought hard, loved harder and always, always put one another first…way before us kids and their marriage was based on Him. I didn’t realize how much silent advice they had given my husband and I until we saw my Mom take care of my Dad until his last breath. Sometimes the best advice doesn’t come in words, but actions. Happy Anniversary, y’all! 🙂
YES! This is the girl I follow!!!! Mary, I wonder if it’s yours! EW that blog post was TMI!
It is!! ahhhhh.
You’re so right–so much advice can be with action not words. Congratulations to your parents for sticking with it so long.
I think we follow the same person–I might just be half reading what she posts since it’s so dumb and I got the specifics wrong. Also, I ended up un-following her because she’s just too much for me. Eh.
Happy Anniversary! I’ve been married to my hubby for 18yrs and we’ve been together 21yrs. Have 4 kids together. I’m definitely not qualified to give advice. We’ve had out share of trying moments. Many that I naively said would end my marriage (before I got married.). If I could give advice I’d say always put God first. If you both do this you will always be on the right path together. Since we don’t always do this at the same time I’d say forgiveness is very important. I thought I knew everything about marriage before I got married. Just like I thought I knew everything about being a parent before I became one. But that’s another story. Marriage brings out the best and worst in people. I’m glad we stuck in there during the hard times because now we are seeing the fruits of our labor. God Bless you and Chris. Enjoy the next 10 years of getting to know each other!
Yes! I had so many non-negotiables before marriage, but now that I’m in it, it just changes things, you’re so right. Thanks, Mel.
Yay to 10 years of marriage because let’s face it, that has got to be marathon status already right? The crazy thing is that we are willing to get up and run 5 more of these decade-long marathons with this person, even after the pain, agony, regrets, victories, celebrations that come as you cross this first finish line. A decade does mark something, especially this first decade of marriage. All the stupid choice we make at first (like where did we spend those two full salaries with no dependents?) and then the gaining of children (totally sanctification process right there) and wisdom (which comes through regrets and then repentance and then redemption) in all those early stupid decisions.
So, cross this line, take the trophy around your necks and catch your breaths. Training for the next marathon starts tomorrow. 😉 <3 #married4life
TROPHY HELD HIGH, Danielle. Thank you. 🙂
After nearly 15 years together and almost 9 years of marriage, I feel the same way. We have paved our way through some things that were never on our radar when we got married, but we came through it better in all aspects. The airplane thing tho, made me laugh SO HARD.
Still not over that airplane incident…
Love this. Every little bit.
Thanks, Heather.
While I appreciated the 2nd half of this blog, I felt like your introduction was shitting on anyone married for less than 5 years. You don’t make it to ten without getting through those first few years, and no matter how small those accomplishments seem to you, they are huge milestones for people just starting. It is definitely not something to belittle. I wondered if you were having a difficult time thinking of a way to begin a blog about marriage advice while not coming off like the person that annoys you on social media. I get it, but I think it’s a cop-out and I’m a little disappointed.
Emily, I’m sorry you feel that way. The first few years are accomplishments in and of themselves, but that’s not what I’m celebrating right now. You’re welcome to go back through my archives and see my thoughts and feelings on those years. I’ve been blogging for most of our marriage and instead of making generalizations, I’d invite you to see where my marriage has been and my commentary on that. Lastly, I’ve been writing on the internet long enough to know that your comment says more about you than me so if you need someone to tell you that your marriage–no matter how long you’ve been married–is important, you’re welcome to email me and we can talk.
I am convinced I follow the same person as you …. Is she a semi-celebrity? Because if not, then this is an accurate description of a semi-celebrity I follow LOL!!!!!!!!!
I’ve been married one year and 2 weeks and my #1 marriage advice so far is to share the remote. Nothing ever goes right if you are a remote hog all the time (I learned that from a college roommate who watched What Not To Wear and Say Yes to Dress for hours every .. . single …. day.). That’s all I got so far. Ask me in year 2.
🙂
Happy anniversary! 10 years is nothing to snuff about!
Best advice! Share the remote–perfect! 🙂
(And I think we follow the same person. *awkward smile*)
Oh, this is lovely! We hit 18 years this May, and I think you’re dead on, except for the wedding ceremony video. Ours is trapped on VHS forever somewhere in the depths of our basement, and I’m good with that. On our anniversary we look at each other with some sort of dumb gratefulness that we haven’t killed each other by now. 😉
Go find the VHS!! hahaha. It would be worth a laugh or two at least! 🙂 Congrats on 18 years, that’s a big milestone and also congrats on not murdering each other. That’s a bigger milestone.