I talk about marriage a lot. A whole LOT! It's something I'm passionate about. Passionate enough that I plan to do an MSc in Marriage and Family Therapy. So here's to another post on marriage!
So you know how when you are planning to get married, every piece advice has something to do with roses, thorns and work? "Marriage is no bed of roses!", "You must find the roses among the thorns!", "Marriage is NOT easy, it's hard work!!!" You haven't heard those lines? Okay, I am a wedding photographer so I do get to hear my fair share of marriage thoughts; nearly 40-50 times each year actually. It's amazing how the bride and groom smile and jump the broom anyway. Walking off into the sunset with confetti in their hair and a gait in their step. Ready to take it on!
I remember my confetti moment; now MERELY 5 years ago! I could hear the music play, I could hear people speak. I sensed the excitement, but to be honest, that entire day was a daze. I remember bits and pieces of it and there's a video somewhere that recorded it all but it was all so cloudy... literally and figuratively that I honestly have no recollection of how it all went down. I do however remember the "Marriage is hard work!!" "Talk to each other or you will die!!! Go to sleep angry and you will be annihilated! May Armageddon come upon you if you don't date or share a car!!!" Okay, I exaggerate, but that's what it sounded like.
I remember the first morning of our honeymoon waking up still starry-eyed next to what I thought at the time was a Demigod of a husband! "Good morning husband!" He half-smiled... would have preferred something more like what I watched on whatever soap I was following at the time. I sat up, pulled out my journal (yes I'd been told at a shower to make sure I capture all my memories in a journal as a young wife) and told him I'd like to spend the morning writing down our favourite memories from the wedding. He got up and muttered as he walked to the bathroom that he'd prefer to just have breakfast and relax by the pool.
ARMAGEDDON!!!!!!!!
Was he serious??? I'm his wife!!!! I come first!!! Memories have to be written down in my journal!!! How will we remember? What will our kids find wrapped in an old cupboard long after we've gone??? I have faaaaaaaiiiiiiiillllleeeed!!!! My first real tears of shock and bewilderment were to be shed on that day. Only a day after the confetti and magical dress I'll never rock again. Needless to say that journal today makes a good book for my shopping lists. I tear off pages without blinking.
You know, when someone who's been married 20 years tells a starry-eyed bride that marriage is hard work, as a newlywed, it's only as hard as where I am at. My first year of marriage I thought was hell! Did he actually just squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube???? Is he seriously just going to sit there watching telly while I'm SLAVING here making dinner?!! I thought I would die! This is it! I can't take a lifetime of badly squeezed toothpaste tubes! I would cry and google and subscribe to yet another marriage newsletter. You should see my bookshelf; The First Five Years, The Marriage Dance, When Two Become One, The Act of Marriage, From Roses to Dishes, A Diamond in The Rough, His Needs Her Needs, The Power of a Praying Wife.... are you seeing how the trend was going.
A few years into marriage you realise that the toothpaste is the least of your worries. That's probably when you decide to bring to life those gifts that are non-returnable and don't come with a manual. I call mine the Waluhyas. And suddenly you realise you might have a bit of a problem. You notice that the old telly advert where a baby is crying in the middle of the night and the wife says to the husband "It's your turn!" and he begrudgingly wakes up to go and settle the baby in the NEXT room; is a lie from the furthest corner of HADES! In fact you most likely will be sleeping in between two babies. The wailing one on one end and the one that's playing dead on the other end! Lol! And at that point you probably imagine, that is what those women were saying. This has got to be as bad as IT gets!!! Surely I will die if my husband doesn't do at least 50% of the baby work!!!
Oh but you were just getting started.
A little after that just when you've signed the mortgage contract and enrolled the first child in GEMS, signed up for Pilates because now you're a full-time mom wanting to raise your young family... He decides to go into business. Or maybe he just loses his job. And you move from two huge salaries, to one huge salary, to one promise of a salary if 'business goes well'. And suddenly you are having to find creative ways to prepare lentils for dinner. Ndengu fry, ndengu curry, ndengu stroganoff... Hahaha! And you think that perhaps you still may be welcome, with your brood of course, back at your parents home. They who've been married 40+ years, have a house the size of your block of flats and what was your bedroom is about the same size as they house you now live in.
And when you look at your parents, still going strong in their marriage all those years later, you imagine their worst fight was about toothpaste, or who's turn it is to cook, or diaper changes. You see them smile and exchange private jokes. You see them hold hands at your wedding as they give you away, and you imagine all they ever fought about was mortgages and lack of finances. You see that because that's where you are. You don't see another woman or man. You don't see the loss of a child. You don't see a life threatening illness.
And that's okay.
But the next time someone who has been married 20 years tells you "Marriage is hard!", acknowledge it with them, but don't pretend you know what they are talking about. Say yes, it's hard, but seeing you married means it can be done.
