What Married People Neglect to Mention

I’ll bet as you begin to read this blog, if you are single you are expecting me to say something about how marriage is not as easy and as wonderful as many people think. Sorry about that. I would like to apologize to all the not-yet-marrieds who have had so many ‘warnings’ about what they should expect in marriage that you have begun to doubt whether its even worth all the bother. Don’t even doubt it, marriage is totally worth it.

Before I was married I was warned that I need to choose my wife wisely because marrying the ‘wrong un’ could ruin my whole life. I was warned that I need to go into marriage with my ‘eyes wide open’ and not be duped by the soppy sentiment that everything was going to be a ‘bed of roses’.

When I was married I was solemnly warned by some that if I could just vas-byt and make it through the first 10 years, the worst would be over and I would experience marital bliss. Others told me the first year is hell but after that it's plain sailing. Still others said that the first 2 years of marriage are the ‘honeymoon period’ and after the initial swoon has worn off then I would need to dig deep into the other kind of love, the self-sacrificial ‘agape’ love of Christ.

And so I chose my wife with meticulous care for fear that I would marry the wrong un. I went into marriage with my eyes wide open shirking off the sentimental sap that clutched at my ankles. I went into my first year with trepidation expecting explosions at every corner. I went into my second year a little perplexed that the first year had been so lovely, nay, the best year of my life! I refused to naively think that marriage could continue to be so blissful and braced myself for the tumult that must surely come. Into my third year I took due heed of the warning that the first two were just the ‘honeymoon phase’ and stoically resolved to put my agape on.

What a load of balderdash! Is that any way to live?! In other parts of the world that’s called ‘living in fear’. I refuse to live one more day in fear of other people’s horror stories, and I exhort you to do the same. After my first year of marriage I sat down with a friend who has been married awhile and asked him if it was normal for marriage to be so incredibly awesome! He said ‘yep, it’s pretty normal’. I asked him why nobody had mentioned this to me before I was married. He suggested that maybe it was because married couples didn’t want me to feel badly about still being single.

Now I respect the fact that married people don’t want singles to feel badly, but if we are going to all agree on that then perhaps we should also all agree to keep our marriage struggles to ourselves? It reminds me a bit of when I was a young believer and quite besotted with my savior – Jesus. I was such a zealous follower and I just wanted to share my faith with everyone. It wasn’t long before I got some sour comments from older believers about how I must enjoy the ‘honeymoon season’ of my faith and how they remember when they used to… Well I’m twelve years down the road on my journey of faith now and, what can I say? I must be having a record length of a honeymoon season with God because I’m still pretty infatuated with him!

Relationships sometimes get hard because they reveal to us that we love ourselves too much. This is true but that doesn’t make relationships bad! The same is true of marriage. What is bad about marriage is usually what is bad about me, but that doesn’t make marriage any less beautiful. Marriage is one of the most incredible gifts that God has given us and I think it reveals a depth of beauty and love in Him that is quite breath-taking. That he should think to invent such a thing! Wow! If this information makes you feel a bit sad that you are not yet married, sorry about that, but let us rather encourage you to make the most of the season that you’re in than devalue a beautiful gift called marriage that God has given to us. That would not be fair.