Lately, as in beginning directly after we told everyone we were engaged (and based on this alone, I'm SO glad we didn't tell everyone we were engaged until months later so we could enjoy ourselves privately before the comments began...), Will and I have been getting lots of gross little pieces of advice thinly disguised as jokes. From our friends that are already married and from our friends that think they know what marriage means based off of what they see on television and in movies, we hear that getting married equals wife bitching, man drinking, and no sex. It equals wife wanting kids right away, man appeasing this so she'll stop the complaining. It equals no spontaneity. It equals no passion. It equals rules and boundaries and no fun at all.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard (usually from male friends) to simply NOT get married. That we're crazy. That we don't know what we're getting into. That it'll ruin everything.
Really? I've had enough of it already. It disgusts me. First, that people would have such a lack of respect for their wife/husband (and themselves!) that they would talk in such a manner. And second, because if that's really the case of your marriage than you married the completely wrong person and obviously thought that marriage would fix an already horribly wrong union. Marriage has nothing to do with lack of passion, friendship, respect, sex, or any other positive thing going down the tube. It's not marriage that made your partnership sour, it's the fact that your partnership was sour to begin with. If you have all of these problems, it is not simply because you got married it's because there are problems in your relationship--marriage or no marriage. Maybe it's that you went into marriage thinking that things would change. Maybe it's that you got married simply because that's what you do next. Who the fuck knows. But I'm SO tired of hearing these disgusting tidbits from people that are supposed to be supportive and kind.
I can assure you that I would not be marrying Will let alone date him for almost a decade if I did not have passionate love for this man. He is adventurous. He is brave. He is smart in a way that's not in your face, but is rather a quiet thinker. I love this. He goes batshit crazy if bottled up inside for too long. He needs things to be clean, orderly. Sometimes this drives me crazy, but man is it nice. He loves animals, and one of the things I love the most about him is the fact that he loves hunting simply for being out in the woods and observing nature. He gets this from his father, and I love that I can see different pieces of him through his father, his grandfather, his people. It is comforting to me to see this history. He has a clear head, a wild temper, a short fuse, infinite patience. He's contradictory. He's beautiful. He has more forgiveness than any person I have ever known. He has so much belief in me it's scary at times. He's really strong, and I find that so crazy sexy. He's got about twenty-three laughs and I could tell you what every single one of them means. I know this man. I know him as I know myself, and yet part of his beauty to me is that he is still a mystery to me and for the rest of my life I will learn still more from him and about him and through him.
So say what you want about your marriage and what is equals (or does not equal) for you. But this marriage isn't yours, it doesn't belong to anyone else but to Will and to me. Do not speak ill of what we're dreaming up just because your dreams fell short. This happiness is ours.
