Thoughts On Marriage

“When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part” — George Bernard Shaw

I’ve spent the better part of the past two years learning about myself. I’ve focused on my insecurities, my self-defeating behaviors, my dark side, my playful side, my roles and how I relate to others. During this time, as has been well documented here, I also went through a marital separation, marriage counseling and ultimately reconciliation. Through that all though, my focus has been on my part in the problems we had and what I need and want. It sounds selfish I know. It was, and still is, necessary for me to continue to understand myself. A lifetime spent ignoring myself didn’t work out so well and was one of the biggest reasons for the derailment of my marriage in the first place.

I believe a new phase is upon me now. I have begun to re-integrate focusing on my husband’s wants and needs in addition to my own. I didn’t notice until recently that I was so terrified of falling back into old codependent patterns of people-pleasing that I almost completely stopped focusing on him. Again I think this was necessary for me to do as part of my own process but it is now safe to at least dip my foot back into the pool of focusing on others sometimes, specifically my husband.

It is not as if he has been completely ignored. He hasn’t. But in my quest to stop my own insanity I also stopped analyzing him. That is a good thing because it became extremely unhealthy for me to be constantly trying to guess what he wanted or needed and then attempting to provide that to him without his asking or even his consent. There is a happy medium though. I know he will tell me what he wants or needs directly these days. But sometimes picking up on things that are not directly expressed can lead to better understanding and communication, without becoming a codependent, people-pleasing nightmare. He has taught me that.

He has pointed out to me on many occasions when I am falling back into old patterns of destructive behavior when I was clueless that I was doing so. He notices when I am anxious and questions me until I figure out and communicate what is bothering me. He sees better than I do when I need to get out of the house and just have some mindless fun. He supports my every decision, even when there is not yet evidence that the decision has been a good one. He is more intuitive than I ever imagined. He gets me. He knows me. Warts and all. And for some reason he still likes me. I’d even go so far as to say that he likes me even more now than he ever did before our separation.

I’ve read two very different books about marriage in the past couple of weeks. They are An Unfinished Marriage by Joan Anderson (thanks to my friend Jess!) and Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert. Joan Anderson took a year off to find herself and wrote about that in a book I have yet to read called A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman. Without having read this first book I can’t say for sure but from what I gathered from reading her other book is that she lost herself in her roles of wife and mother much as I had. She took a year off to find herself just as Elizabeth Gilbert had in Eat, Pray, Love. Both of these authors went through periods of significant introspection after realizing that they did not know themselves much like I did. Unfortunately I didn’t have either of their budgets so I didn’t take a year off or travel extensively but the basics are similar.

Just as Eat, Pray, Love had a major impact on my thinking about myself, these two books about marriage have also had a major impact on my thinking about my marriage. I highly recommend reading these two books back to back. Joan Anderson’s story is told from the perspective of a woman of retirement age whose children are adults. Elizabeth Gilbert’s is told from the perspective of a woman who married the wrong man because she thought it was what she was supposed to do, has never wanted children, went through a nasty divorce and is faced with the decision to remarry despite having sworn off marriage altogether. These two diverse perspectives from women who have had such similar experiences are priceless.

Just as I learned there are no shoulds for me personally, there are none for marriage either. My husband and I are free to create our own personal definition of what our marriage looks like. We are also free to change that definition anytime we like. I don’t have to be a people-pleaser in order for us to be happy. In fact that has the opposite effect. I just need to be myself and so does he. Our whole dynamic has changed considerably since our separation and it continues to evolve daily. He surprises me on a regular basis these days. I continue to struggle with my own process but he seems to really have come into his own. It is ok for me to lean on him from time to time and vice versa. It is ok for us to maintain our own identities and in fact, this strengthens our relationship. In many ways we have switched places and continue to flip-flop in our different roles as spouses and parents. It’s all ok. It’s really as if we are different people today and despite the fact that we have known each other for almost 24 years, we continue to get to know each other as we change, grow and evolve as individuals, as a couple and as a family. Marriage is what we make it and I am beginning to realize how exciting, fun and fulfilling it can be. I can’t wait to find out where we are headed next.

Thanks for stopping by!

Related Reading:

Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's Memoir

An Unfinished Marriage

Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts (Inspirio/Zondervan Miniature Editions)

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