Seven Observations from Ten Years of Marriage

The first picture I have of us together, on July 4th, 2011

 Someone half-jokingly asked me for marriage advice the other day, leading me to reflect on how difficult it is to give advice for how a marriage works. With ten happy years under my belt, I wonder how much of the happiness is grace, how much is the simple combination of personalities, how much of it is work, how much of it is dumb luck. 

But this did get me reflecting on some things I've found to be true in Zach's and my marriage, though it's not universally applicable. So without further ado here are my random thoughts…

1. Marriage doesn't have to look a certain way.

I touched on this in my blog post about our ten-year anniversary, but some of the biggest conflicts in our marriage have come because one or the other of us (let's be real, mostly me) was trying to cram us into a mold rather than just accepting and celebrating what we already had. This can particularly be hard if you're existing in or adjacent to a Christian tradition that has very set gender roles and prescriptions for what makes a "Godly marriage." But secular culture has its own expectations, too, and it took us a while to shed them. No, we don't need a "date night" (at this stage in our lives). We don't get each other presents or write heartfelt letters. We do a lot of hanging out, a lot of walking, and a lot of rambling about whatever our current obsessions are. For us, that's romance.

2. Everyday care is better than grand gestures.

Perhaps mostly for drama queens like me, big romantic gestures are easy. What's hard is washing dishes for the 1000th time, or deciding to actually remember to put vegetables into dinner, or scheduling a doctor's appointment so he doesn't have to. The nitty-gritty mundane parts of everyday life are where love really shines, I think— choosing to show up for each other in the little ways, again and again and again. These are the thousand tiny strings that bind our marriage together.

3. Being friends really helps.

One of the biggest things that has made our marriage great is that we're best friends. We love hanging out, whether that's actively doing something together such as hiking, or simply sitting ten feet apart in a room on our phones. We can and do tell each other everything, and I cherish his friendship more than anything else. That said…

4. Physical attraction is important, too.

Okay, look. One of the big reasons I fell in love with Zach? Because he's hot. There, I said it. He's always been super hot, and I've always been super into him, and it took an absolutely absurd amount of self-control for me to not kiss him the first week we met. And okay, I'm only 33 and we're still both young but gosh darn it, Zach is still so attractive to me that I can barely stand it. I see him sitting across from me at breakfast, or chuckling at something on his phone, or brushing his hair, and I feel weak in the knees again. The man is hot, okay? It's an important part of our marriage, and I'm tired of pretending it's not.

Beneath all this gushing is a serious point: every day, I look at him and find something to fall in love with. I choose to hone my eye for beauty once again. I notice and I appreciate and I enjoy. Which leads me to my next point…

5. The opposite of annoyance is delight.

Being annoyed is super, super easy. I can go from "feeling very chill" to "I would toss this man out a second-story window if he leaves his shoes in the doorway one more time" in half a second, flat. (Or maybe that's just me?) What comes much less naturally, but is a beautiful counterpoint to annoyance, is delight. The little things I notice about him that make me happy. The way he calls to me from across the house by making a kissing sound. The silly Reddit memes he shares with me. The beautiful smile-wrinkles around his eyes, and the way he squeezes his eyes shut in embarrassment when I tell him how much I love his beautiful smile-wrinkles. The more I cultivate, notice, and point out to myself the delight I have, the easier it is to balance the annoyance. 

6. Everyone has a different comfort level for time spent together or apart.

I remember the first time I met a married couple who had a long-distance relationship— one spouse was studying for grad school in the Middle East and the other lived here. I was shocked because I didn't think such a marriage could be healthy or even possible! It was one of many lessons in learning that everyone has a different comfort level for distance or closeness, and that marriage is learning to negotiate and harmonize your differing needs. Personally, Zach and I feel like we've "barely seen each other" if we don't spend huge amounts of time together, so we prioritize one-on-one time a lot in our lives. On the other hand, we've learned that there are some activities we just enjoy doing separately— for instance, Zach would much rather have a quiet evening to himself while I'm out dancing at the salsa club. Understanding our need for together time and alone time helps keep our relationship feeling balanced.

7. Focusing on yourself is often healthiest.

Many of my problems in life have come from focusing on other people— what I think they want or need, what I think I should be for them, how they should be measuring up, what I need them to do, and so on. Being my husband, Zach has borne the brunt of these impulses to fix, control, and perform. The past couple years I've turned inward instead, getting therapy and learning to focus on what I want and need, what my standards are for myself, and how I can improve or accept myself in all my complexity. As I've gotten healthier as a person, our marriage has gotten a lot healthier too. Turning inward has also allowed me to understand things about myself, such as learning to note when I'm getting overstimulated (which often leads to me losing my temper). Doing the inner work has been so good for me, and for us.

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