The sound of my head exploding
Published by Allison December 16th, 2006 in Psychology, Personality, & Mental Health, DirectionBe prepared. About two weeks after the wedding, it will finally sink in, and you will wonder, Oh My God. What Have I Done? This is normal. Just be warned that it will happen.
That’s a paraphrase of some advice my mother-in-law gave me on Thanksgiving (day before the wedding). She had married my father-in-law at the end of October. It still hit her, too — even thought they have been together for seventeen years.
There’s a sense of mourning, of lost freedom, and the clunking sound of expectations falling into line with reality rather than floating up in the air with hopes. It is hard. In some respects, the shell-shock that being newly-married provides is not unlike the first weeks of parenthood. You can be warned. You can intellectually think you know what you’re in for. But nothing, nothing, nothing prepares you for the first month. Did I mention that it’s hard?
When I gave birth to my daughter, I knew that I didn’t know her. I’ve been able to watch her without preconceived notions of the person she’s becoming. In marriage, you’re hitching your future to a person who largely already is who s/he will become. The catch is that no matter how much you know, you never fully know another adult. (My father says that after 41-1/2 years of marriage, my mother still surprises him on a regular basis.) For me, the “getting to know my husband more” phase has largely involved letting go of hopes for who I thought he was — adjusting my expectations with reality. For him, it seems that he’s working it the other direction. Immediately after I moved to Santa Fe, he started to have a series of fears (some justified, mostly not) of who I might become — fears triggered by past relationships, memories of his childhood, etc. So, he’s not as good as I’d hoped he’d be. And I’m not as bad as he feared I would be (at least I hope not).
It’s growth. Growing pains suck.
We’re heading out of town tomorrow for the honeymoon. I’m both anticipating and dreading nine days and eight nights of getting to know my husband more.
In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves. I’m hopeful that my new blog home will be up by the first of the year. Right now, I’m painting the walls and hanging pictures. I’ll move all the boxes (ie, these posts!) after we return.
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I think your post was very interesting. While I am not yet married, I often wonder what makes the first month - or the first year - the hardest of them all. Thank you for the insight, and I hope you have fun on the Honeymoon!!
Ah yes…the most wonderful thing about marriage is that you get to know and be known so completely by one person who you love.
And the most difficult thing about marriage is that you get to know and be known so completely by one person who you love.
As we were sorting out Christmas plans & where we are going to go on what day, for how long, etc. (Jon’s parents are divorced so that adds to the list of visits), I said to Jon - “Well, that settles it! We can never get divorced - I am not willing to do any more driving than this on Christmas!” He laughed because
#1. he knew it was meant to be a joke - we had the conversation a long time ago that divorce is not an option unless there were violence or addiction issues going on (and really, if we got to point, many many things would have to go seriously wrong first!)
and #2 because a big part of marriage is just the mundane boring stuff like driving around to visit all the relatives. One of my favorite “aha” moments since we have been married was when I was trying to count how many people would be at dinner and I counted Jon, Caroline & I as one family and my parents and brothers as the visitors. Before that I had always counted “my family” and then added Jon to that #. It was a small but important shift in thinking.
I think that having a sense of humor - not taking ourselves or “marriage” too seriously - has been a big tool. It’s a great way to diffuse a fight, it’s a great way to realize that the issue at hand is really baggage and not something important. And having a great laugh with someone can be even more fullfilling than great sex. Anyway…I’ll quit rambling now!
Have a great honeymoon!!
Neither of you is “done,” though. You’ll keep growing and changing together. I’m 6 1/2 years married to my husband and we are both different from when we got married, but we did the changing together.
God bless you!
I cannot say what ‘makes a marriage work’; I lucked into someone with whom I was completely compatible, and who can still delight me with just a smile. But I can say that if you keep a sense of humor, and a sense of caring, it’ll probably help. Based on what you write here, I think you’ll do just fine.
Unfortunately I have no great words of wisdom. When I got married- I didn’t have any expectations of change, etc as we had been together for 5 yrs previous, 4yrs 3months of which we cohabitated. People said that being married would be different than living together…but for me it wasn’t– maybe b/c we had already merged accounts, taken long vacations, endured stressful situations, etc.
And 5 yrs in the marriage, I still think it was a great choice– but it’s like any relationship- with your parents, your friends, etc– it does change because we keeping changing. We’re a product of our environment.
But I have to say, that it’s great to know that my greatest advocate and the person I turn to for help & support is my hubby– we’re truly a team- and as long as that is priority #1, all the wrinkles work itself out.
Without having spent a lot of time analyzing it– maybe one of the “weird” things about being married vs having a child (for example) is that it can so “easily” be undone. Divorce happens all the time- sometimes for justified reasaons, and sometimes b/c one or both parties just isn’t willing to work at it. With parenting, you’re stuck w/the cards you’ve been dealt with - so you work at it (although I realize some parents don’t and that’s a whole different story).
Anyhow- I hope you’re having a great honeymoon!!!