Marriage is everything I thought it would be and much, much more.

Easier in some areas that I thought would be challenging,  yet it’s harder in areas that I thought would be a breeze.

A little over two months ago we made our vows, and there have been difficult moments, as everyone told me there would be, and there have been many absolutely amazing, blissful, laugh until you cry moments (many more of these).

But in between the challenging and incredible lie all of the other moments, the moments that make up most of our life: not crazy highs or horrible lows, but just everyday, mundane life together.

I want to share a few light-hearted observations about the ‘everyday episodes’ of marriage. Not the fireworks moments of happiness or times of arguing and disagreeing, but what it is like most of the time: just in the mundane.

I will say, though, mundane has never been more fun.

1. Much of marriage is simply saying all of your observations and general thoughts to someone else 

When you are together ALL the time, sometimes you have just said all the words and there is not much left to say other than general observations.

Max could sit in comfortable silence all day, but I prefer to fill the air with the sound of my words, so I have found that much of marriage is me speaking aloud what I am observing.

“This parking lot is busy.”

“It feels darker than usual outside.”

“I’m so hungry.”

“Taffy is so good.”

Many times I forget if I have already said something out loud or if I just thought it, so just in case I haven’t blessed him with that original thought,  will ask Max if I have already said it:

“Did I already say it feels colder than 68 out here?”

“Yes.”

“Well I agree with what I said previously. It does feel colder than that.”

Basically being married for me has been like a real life, unedited twitter page. I just say all of my thoughts to Max the moment they come into my head and then forget about them.

2. Marriage is making boring stuff fun because you are doing it together

Life doesn’t get exponentially more exciting when you get married, but the best part of it is that you have someone to do all of the annoying, boring life stuff with. Being with Max usually makes the common errand an exciting adventure.

While grocery shopping, we like to stand in front of the donuts in the bakery section and put together our “dream dozen” and each say which donuts we would hypothetically pick.

The other day on a walk, we were listing the 5 ingredients we would put in our “dream trail mix” (passing time for us usually involves a lot of food fantasies)

Obviously my dream trail mix is white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, M&M’s, peanut butter chips and butterscotch chips, which one could argue isn’t really trail mix at all but it’s my fantasy so I don’t care what you think.

Marriage doesn’t magically turn life into a glamorous fairy tale, but it really is a lot more fun to go through the car wash with someone else.

3. Marriage quickly exposes your differences

Max and I had most of the important deal-breaker discussions before our second date. (I may have been a little too eager to find out if he would be my husband or not.) We had been friends for awhile so I knew where he stood on children, family, faith and all the big stuff. In a group of friends, I would casually throw out “So how do you all feel about spanking?” and then listen to Max’s answer. Checkmate.

When you get married, though, you quickly realize where you have commonalities or differences for things you never thought twice about. Not the big stuff, but the little things that pop up: how you do the laundry, how many times you hit snooze in the morning, etc.

Luckily, my husband and I agree on many of these things: you can make a taco out of anything if you try hard enough and we agree there is always room for Fro Yo in our fancy adult budget and you should eat breakfast for dinner at least once per week. No curveballs there.

However, there are a few minor bumps in the road when it comes to seeing eye to eye.

For example, we don’t agree on what is an acceptable time to eat dinner.

In my family, I grew up on the earlybird special, eating dinner at a reasonable 4:45pm with the kitchen cleaned up by 5:30 and a night of activities ahead. If we ever went out to eat, we would obviously be seated by 4:30 to avoid all the crowds.

Imagine my dismay the first time Max came home from the gym at 6pm with zero urgency to eat, as I am weak with starvation, almost 2 hours after my regular dinner time.

While we have come to compromise on eating times, we realized quickly that Max enjoyed eating a late night feast, dinner at about 7:15, while I was ready to eat dinner at a time he considered a late lunch.

My argument: The best thing about eating dinner early is that you get hungry again before bed and get to eat another meal. I am still trying to talk Max into that one.

To wrap this thing up, I know I am just barely scratching the surface of what this beautiful mystery of marriage is really like. 2.5 months is the tiniest of dents in our life together, but I know so much more about marriage now than I did June 17.

Notice this post is not the things I have learned from marriage, rather what I have learned about marriage.

I would need a lot more time to talk about everything I have learned from marriage.

I have learned so many beautiful, painful, amazing lessons about love and life, about myself, God and my husband, in the past 2 months, but those are for another day, a day I have already eaten. It is 6:42pm and we haven’t discussed dinner so I need to take care of this situation.

xo

Jenna