I write often about the funny things that happen in my relationship. The silly things Hubby does or the annoying. Sometimes I’ll break character and share something sweet like the way he always kisses me goodbye in the mornings even if I’m asleep. I was thinking about all of that the other day. Today. Thinking that the fun, the sweetness and the laughter don’t really cover off one main thing.

Relationships are hard. Marriage is the worst.

I don’t know about you but for me, the very idea of being married, belonging to someone else FOREVER was a tricky concept to grasp. I wasn’t a girl who dreamed of her husband or future wedding. I never planned for children or a household to manage or anything. Yet another case of me missing the ‘girl gene’. So nothing surprised me more than falling in love and wanting to marry.

As time went on the shock of actually wanting to commit my life to someone wore off and I settled into the relationship. We found a balance and constantly looked at ways to make it work. I cannot imagine that I am an easy person to be married to. I don’t think anyone is. We laughed, cried, fought and spent those horrible times silent when no one would say a thing.

More and more I came to realise that this marriage was for life. I was talking to a friend, telling her that Hubby and I had been married for 10 years next year and that it was AGES. Such a long time. Soooo long. Ages. She just laughed at me and said ‘honey, you’ve got a long way to go yet’. And it hit me. I do. A long time. A long, long, long time. God-willing.

And for me, that’s why marriage is the worst.

I’m great at relationships, I’m particularly good at the type that ebb and flow and rise and fall. I like space to do my own thing and be on my own. That’s how I have always made friendships, relationships with my family and colleagues work. You can’t do that in marriage and have any sort of success long-term. I’ve found that to be married successfully you have to be all in. Open and free with communicating the good and bad and never have one foot out the door. You need to be together.

Hubby and I have found a good balance. We certainly aren’t the couple that spends all our time together. That works for some people. You know who you are. I think that it’s the finding of what works for you that is the most important. For me, there has been no winning formula that I have been told or shown as an example that perfectly works for us.

We found a way that works for us and that my friends, is what it is all about.

Otherwise, it’s a long, long, long, LONG time to be trying to make someone fit into an idea you have of marriage. And in my experience, those who are having ‘the perfect’ marriage, with ‘the formula and lots of judgemental lines in the sand about what makes a marriage ‘good enough’ are the people who find themselves in situations where they can’t forgive the small things. Can’t look at their partner as a whole person with flaws and faults and will one day have that bite them on the butt.

Don’t be that person. Find your way. YOUR WAY. Just work together, keep your feet firmly planted in your relationship and don’t sweat the small stuff. It is, after all, all small stuff. Most of all find a way to be married that works for you both and have fun creating a relationship just like that. Do it with lots of love. And sex, always lots of sex. Haha.

Got a marriage tip for us? Did you take to marriage easily or was it something you had to learn? 

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