Myths of Marriage

Remember that one time I thought I was really ambitious and was going to write one hundred and twenty posts in a year?  Yeah, me too.  *silently weeps a little*.  Listen, every time I get done with work I think to myself that I should go home and write something.  Anything.  But I don't have much to write about.  As I was driving to work this weekend, both days, I thought to myself, 'man, I hate people that have office jobs right now.'  They had the holiday weekend off.  They enjoyed the warm weather.  Speaking of which, it has been really warm here the past couple of days and if I hear any Minnesotan complain about the weather because it is too hot after hearing them complain that the weather was too cold this winter, I'm going to throat punch them.  I got a little sidetracked, sorry.  Let's delve into more of these random topics shall we?

What are the biggest myths about marriage?

The first year is hard.  I don't know about anyone else, but the first year of marriage was a breeze.  Maybe it was because it was all new and exciting, but it was not that complicated.  I wrote back in March about how living together made it much easier of a transition into married life because nothing really changed.  I'm sure that if we went back to the first couple of years that we lived together, something that traditionally has been the first year of marriage, I may have a different feeling about it.  But no, the first year wasn't hard.  That's my aspect of it.  I'm sure if you asked my wife, she may have a different opinion.  So why wasn't it hard?  It's only hard if you make it so.  In the first year, you are kind of feeling out how it is to not be a single person anymore.  You are finding out how some decisions are no longer based on just one person.  If you take the time to factor in your spouse and how they will react, then you avoid stupid arguments.  Now, don't get me wrong, my wife and I argue over small things a lot.  Still to this day.  After seven years of marriage.  After living together for thirteen years.  But get your thoughts and feelings out in the open.  They don't do you any good if they sit in the back of your head and stew.

Your spouse has to take your last name.  Traditionally, it happens that when two people get married, they share the same last name.  My wife and I were engaged for just over a year.  In that time, we went back and forth on a few things when it came to our marriage.  We thought about going home for a traditional wedding before settling on going away for it.  By the way, best decision we made.  If you are reading this and you are thinking about doing a destination wedding, DO IT!  Less stress, more about you and not who showed up, plus if you do it right, you have a reception/party back home so you get to dress up twice!  Once we settled on that, the only major decision was the name thing.  Again, my wife went back and forth on taking my last name.  Actually, there wasn't much back and forth.  She thought about it for a split second and though, nah, she liked her name.  It was part of her identity.  And who am I to take that away from her?  I remember having this reaction once she told me that she was going to stick with her name.  I was taken aback.  Even a little angry.  Then I pulled my head out of my ass and realized:  it's just a name.  We were still going to be married.  We were still going to love each other no matter what.  Having my last name or her last name was not going to change any of that.  Plus, from what we understand, there's a lot of paper work involved in changing it.  And fuck that.  Am I right?  There are people that are so excited to take their husband's name (or vice versa) because to them that is part of marriage.  And more power to them.  I'm not going to tell them that they are wrong in doing so.  I just don't think that it needs to happen if someone doesn't want it to. 

You have to have kids.  They cry and scream and eat and shit everywhere.  They do nothing but brood and pout until they are in college and then they call asking for money and don't appreciate you until they are in their thirties.  I know this because I'm in my thirties and I have recently gone through all those stages mentioned previously.  You don't need them if you don't want them.  They don't come as part of the marriage.  It's not in the marriage license.  Trust me, we looked.  And then had it double checked because we wanted to make sure that it was true.  Don't feel pressured that because you are married that kids are the next step.  You always have to do what is best for you.  If you don't want kids, don't have kids.  If you want to have six or seven, first get your head checked, and then go have six or seven kids.

Some of these myths also go along with older traditions.  You look back to the fifties and sixties and traditional marriage was having the same name, raising two and a half kids, going to church every Sunday.  Times change.  People change.  Cultures change.  You cannot expect to pick up a book on marriage and have yours follow that same path.  Every marriage is different.  Yours is going to be different than your parents or your siblings or your best friends.  All you need to know is that marriage works for the two that are involved in it.  And no one else.  If what works best for you is buying a pop up camper and traveling cross country year round doing odd jobs, then guess what, that's marriage.  If it is having a dozen kids that all have names that start with the letter 'B', then that's marriage.  If it is living in a studio apartment in downtown of a major city and it just being the two of you, then that is marriage.  Everyone is different, every marriage is different.  And we are all a bunch of perfect fucking snowflakes looking for that other perfect fucking snowflake to spend the rest of our life with. 

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