Alright guys, I am going to write about marriage. Not because I am an expert, because I have the remotest advice, or because I have any answers. I am going to write about marriage because I am married, marriage is hard, and we need to talk about the fact that it is harder than we all expected it to be. We don't have to wait until we are old and our marriage is a "success," or until we have been divorced and our marriage has "failed" to talk about marriage. One of my favorite authors Glennon Doyle Melton says we need to talk about things "during the during." So, I am going to go balls out and do that.
"During the during" is probably the hardest time to open up. During when we are most vulnerable and, in the case of marriage or relationships, there are other people to protect. But here's what' I've noticed. My husband and I and most people we hang out with are 4-8ish years in to a marriage or committed relationship, have small kids, and talk about how hard it is to have kids, only touching on a recent fight we may have had with our spouse in a funny story. The kids are easy to talk about. We are all struggling with parenting and there's not that sense of betrayal when talking about the kids. Writing about parenting is easy. Writing about the hard days of parenting is harder. Writing about marriage feels terrifying. I am not here to betray my spouse or throw him under the bus. I'm not here to air our dirty laundry.
What I am here to do is tell the truth, because it's happened multiple times now. We hang out with other couples, joke about the kids, have a few drinks and talk about parenting and home improvement. Suddenly, one of those couples is divorced and we are all like "what the hell?" Then my husband and I have another fight a few days later, and we kind of know what could get us there. We wonder if someday that will be us. Divorce isn't something we want, but it's something that is happening to a LOT of our friends who don't want it, either. My husband and I know that just like getting hit by a bus, we aren't immune. If we don't want hit by a bus too, it's time to start looking both ways before we cross the street.
I am not here to vilify marriage OR divorce. If you are and older Millenial (late 20-early 30s) then you parents are Baby Boomers and they grew up in a time when divorce was riddled with shame, secrecy and blame. Divorce was more common among our Boomer parents, but was often still an indicator of "failure" and surrounded by shame. We are living in a time when the divorce rate is sitting comfortably at 50%. It sounds about right since at 32, I can name about half of my friends who are divorced. I am my husband's second wife. Many of my friends are on second marriages. An increasing number of my friends are choosing not to get married, and while their parents don't get it, their friends totally get it. Marriages and relationships end, each for different reasons, and I don't have the secret for a lasting marriage. What I do know is that divorce does not equate failure, and some marriages and relationships need to end, to be complete and final so both people can move on. Some marriages don't have to end, there's things that can be worked out. Each couple has to decide that for themselves.
Everyone told us that marriage was going to be hard. And we were like "yeah, we TOTALLY see why it was hard for YOU. But look how much WE LOVE EACH OTHER!" HA! What young idiots we were. There is a reason that marriage vows say "for better or worse...until death do you part." The people who wrote it knew that shit was NECESSARY. I could pretty much write a book on all the things that we have been through that we weren't prepared for: deployment, moving, infertility, a kid, jobs, stress, money. Through it all, we have fought and cried, made love and thrown things, held hands and slammed doors, held each other tight and wanted out.
In a committed relationship, you are doing life with another person, a person who knows every bit of you. I mean KNOWS YOU. My husband knows what I look like when I REALLY cry, he has cleaned my diarrhea and vomit off the entire bathroom when I was sick, he's seen my body push out a bloody little human, he knows what my farts smell like, he knows my secrets. He's the one I go to. I'm the one he goes to. I've watched my husband brush his teeth, sleep, seen his anger and heart ache, his smiles and tears. I know when he's not telling me things and why that's okay. We have had the hardest conversations we have ever had with another person with each other. My husband and I are also both super passionate people. We each have two states: calm and losing our shit. He gets mad, I act like the world is ending. When you put two firecrackers together with that level of intimacy, it can be amazingly exciting or a flat out shit storm.
And here we are, DURING THE DURING. In the midst of a marriage. But is it a "hard marriage" or just "marriage?" Honestly, my friends and I don't talk about how HARD marriage is, so I don't have any way to gauge it. I think that's one big reason we should talk about it with other people we love and trust. We should share with others without blame, without vilifying, without throwing each other under the bus. Our partners are our partners. That means we keep each other's secrets and we tell each other how we are feeling. But that doesn't mean we need to pretend to our best friends or family that it's all fine, like we don't feel really lonely sometimes despite having someone to share it all with. There will be fights, there will be make-ups. For some, there will be divorce, for others not. I do think if we pretend like everything is fine, it will all be a lot less fine.
Marriage is hard, guys. Parenting is hard. This shit is sometimes absolutely terrible. Let's not just pretend like it's all sunshine and fucking roses. Let's be real with those we love and who care about our relationships and start talking about it during the during instead of just the before or the after.
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