Monday's Musings: Marriage "truths"... Ha!

Since it's February, the "love" month,
I thought it fitting to dedicate a post to marriage. As a wife approaching
6 months of marriage,
there’s a lot of learning going on in this girly brain of mine!
Here are some things I viewed as Marriage Truths going into marriage….
Which I quickly found out, aren’t so truthful.

1. You will cuddle as you sleep.

I’m sure there are a few couples out there that can cuddle all night long and never get hot, never get elbowed in the face, and never move out of a perfectly synced cuddle position.

 
 
HA!

For the other 99.9% of us, reality is: you sleep on your side, and I’ll sleep on mine. That motto is much more beneficial for the couple as a whole and the moods individually. This illustration sums it up perfectly.

 

  2. Goodbye sweatpants!

When I was single, after I got home from work, I had a certain pair of sweatpants that I loved. And wore them all the time. These weren’t the cute stylish sweatpants though. These were the sweatpants that you have had for 10 years so they sag in places you didn’t know possible. The kind that is so far removed from the word “fashion” that they can hardly be considered clothing.

But I always "knew" that after I got married, I would never wear those sweatpants in front of my husband. I would have the self-control to only wear them while he was away.

HA!

 Ladies, let’s be honest. Unless you trash it before marriage, you will wear those clothes after marriage. Do yourself a favor. PURGE. Throw those clothes away. Remove ALL temptation.

Because one day, in a weak moment, on a “I just feel like eating cookie dough” day, you’ll slip. And your husband will come home to his wife…cookie dough in one hand, ice cream in the other… and pants on that make you look more like a blowfish than a wife.

 3. Silverware is for dumping.

I always thought that the small things that couples supposedly argue about are an exaggeration.

Thoughts like this went through my head: “We’ll never be that couple.”  “I just don’t care about that type of stuff.”

HA!

Everyone has small things that their spouse will do differently and you will think the other one is beyond psychotic. For example, when my husband loads the dishwasher, he puts all the spoons in one compartment, forks in another, knives in a third, etc…

When I saw what he was doing, I laughed, and probably even poked fun a little. In all my life, I had never even thought to put the same type of silverware together in a compartment. I just assumed the compartments were so that when you dumped silverware into the dishwasher, it would force the pieces to stand up straight instead of all fall on top of each other.

Then one day, I thought to myself… Holly, what’s the big deal. It will take you five extra seconds to load the dishwasher the way Aaron likes. Plus...Sorting silverware had been the most tedious, most annoying part of unloading the dishwasher for the previous 25 years of my life, so why not try something different??

So I did it one day. All the forks went together, the spoons together, and the knives.

A couple hours later, I went to unload. As I began unloading the silverware, a magical feeling began to creep over my soul! At last, I process that I had previously despise and loathed, was now, so easy, so fast, so simple!!

… In one simple re-structure, it began a task that was the most enjoyable because all the silverware was already sorted! I simply had to put the handful of spoons in their section of the drawer!!

That night I had to humbly apologize to my husband for poking fun at him. He was much nicer about it than I would have been… and to this day, I am reminded: Small things can change. It might even be better if they do.

4.   Ghosts? Zombies? Serial killers? Bring on the scary movies! I’m married now!

I’ve never been able to handle any type of scary movie. I’m simply unable to not jump, scream, or claw whoever happens to be sitting by me.

After we got married, I thought- hey I can handle scary movies! I’ve got a husband! I know he’ll protect me from any crazy serial killer that might be hiding under my bed one night. So I watched scary movies.

HA!

Let’s just say, Aaron has nail prints in his arm that will probably leave scars.

 

Married ladies- I hope you can relate. What are marriage truths that you say HA! to?

Single ladies- do yourself a favor…. Talk to women who have been married a while. Learn what are realistic expectations for the daily life of marriage. You’ll make things a lot easier on yourself and your husband.

 

And start purging that closet now.  You won’t regret it.