Marriage Advice From a Semi-Professional Wife

Life and love with the same infuriating man for almost a decade — where’s my medal?

I just celebrated my ninth wedding anniversary with my husband, and I’m pleased as punch that after that many years, we’re still going strong. Actually, let me rephrase that: we’re going strong once again, intermittently. That’s a tad more accurate.

I realize that this is an odd way to celebrate success in marriage: “hooray! We like each other sometimes!” But, it’s fitting and I am feeling pretty cheery about the whole thing.

In case you didn’t get the memo, let me fill you in: marriage is hard. Forcing two people, by law, to love each other and attempt to build a life under one roof sounds positively insane at times. I often wonder about how aliens would view our customs — for instance, I wonder if, while studying us as we stoop to pick up our dog’s poop, they think the dog is the master. I guess they kind of are, but I’m getting off point.

Anyway, I think aliens would be perplexed about our marriage customs, especially when you consider how often we throw together two completely different people (hi there) and expect them not to kill each other while simultaneously raising children.

No wonder it goes wrong so often.

My husband and I grew up in very different worlds — he was the bad boy, the ‘rebel without a cause’ type, while I was your standard fare goodie goodie, and mega band nerd. It’s a good thing we didn’t meet until our mid twenties, because if I’d met him in my younger years, I would have avoided him and his Nine Inch Nails loving ass like the plague.

I mean, I think so.

We both grew up, of course, and as time has gone on I’ve heard considerably less NIN, and his bad boy side has morphed into a strong willed man who is as insufferable as he is respectable.

Take from that what you will.

I, meanwhile, have learned to be less rigid and controlling (think Monica Geller, and you’ll have an idea of how my brain works.)

In our time together as two extreme opposites in more ways than one, I’ve learned some things. A lot of things, actually. I’ve compiled a little list for you, mostly because that’s just what happens when you get a list person in front of a computer: they tend to make all the lists.

Arguments!

So many arguments… I honestly don’t know how many times we’ve fought but oh, it’s a lot. We’ve fought about everything from political issues, to money matters, to parenting decisions, to how to correctly peel a banana, and everything in between. And it’s okay — each and every argument, of which the intensity varies (the banana one was a humdinger,) gets us closer to understanding not only each other, but ourselves.

I have a few friends who insist that they never argue with their spouses and I call bullshit — how else do you get down to the raw, gritty innards of your chosen life partner? How do you really know yourself, for that matter? Maybe it’s just me, but I find that I don’t really get real clarity on how I feel about a particular issue until the man I love (and simultaneously want to bludgeon) and I hash it out in a good old fashioned marital debate.

So, argue. It shows you care, in a weird way. Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, professor of Psychology, clinical psychologist, author and overall advice-giver, puts it best in my opinion:

“Life is full of hard problems to discuss, and discussion requires someone with whom to contend.”

Just make sure you’ve chosen a partner who is up to the challenge, and who will argue until the cows come home with respect, love, and fairness. And remember that arguing and abuse are not the same thing.

Values

I don’t think that a marriage between two devout people of differing faiths will have much of a chance of providing any contentment, but I am just guessing.

My husband and I go to church now, but when we first got together, faith wasn’t a topic of discussion. We grew together and chose, after a time, that bringing Christianity into our lives was the best course for us, as well as for our children.

Before you run away screaming from the bible-thumper (I’m really not, I promise) this is not a discussion of faith, specifically. The term ‘values’ applies to so many things in marriage: how you choose to raise your kids, your take on how best to provide them with guidance and discipline, how you intend to grow and live together as your marriage matures into oldfarthood, your political beliefs, your views about marriage and divorce, your feelings about love and commitment, and so on.

We’ve disagreed on many of those things, of course, but our basic value systems matched up well enough that those disagreements weren’t detrimental to our happiness or chances of marital success. Sharing the same values, at least on a very basic level, is pretty important when it comes to making a marriage work and avoiding the dreaded ‘D’ word.

Housework (etc.)

I think money and housework top the list for many couples when you ask them what they fight about. Well, maybe sex is up there, too. But a sink full of dirty dishes has definitely sent more than one wife — or wife to be — running for the hills.

I think it’s normal for one of the two halves in a marriage to take on the brunt of the housework, and I think that’s generally okay. It’s relatively unfeminist of me, I suppose, but in my marriage, that’s me. It’s entirely because I am, at least, comparatively, a clean freak (see the above comment about Monica Geller.)

I’ve found that in most relationships, I was always definitely more concerned about cleanliness and overall spatial niceness than my other halves. And it’s okay — they pretty much took on the man jobs, which by the way, were jobs I didn’t want. Shoveling the walk? No thanks, I’m going to decorate the kids’ room.

The nice thing about my husband — and something that all men should take note of — is that besides actually doing a fair bit of housework himself, he greatly and vocally appreciates everything that I do to make our house pleasant. I, likewise, frequently voice my appreciation for his heavy lifting and dirty work, like taking out the trash, keeping the yard free of junk, taking care of the recycling, and so on.

Housework is just one of many jobs adults are expected to keep up on, so mutual respect and appreciation for the work you do for each other is a great way to keep the peace in a home.

This, by the way, I think applies to many other ‘chores’ in a marriage. I’ll just leave it at that.

Social Needs

This is something that I think makes one half — sometimes both halves — of a marriage supremely unhappy. An individual’s social needs differ exponentially, and when you have two people on opposite sides of the socializing spectrum, it can lead to resentment and ultimately, major unhappiness.

My husband and I are both and have always been homebodies. We like to stay in, play games, watch movies, and avoid outings with other people more than most. We’re very introverted, so this works out for us — we enjoy our tiny family circle more than loud pub music, uncomfortable shoes, and incessant small talk.

Ugh. Small talk.

I know of a couple — er, an ex-couple, actually — in which she was a social butterfly and he just wanted to stay home and read books. That wasn’t their only difference, but as she started to go out more frequently, he withdrew from her more, and they eventually drifted so far apart that they stopped seeing each other entirely.

How you approach your social lives changes a bit — or a lot, depending on the couple — when you get married. My husband and I still have different friends, and while he does occasionally come out with my friends and I, he usually stays home while I have meaningful conversations with the people I’ve built friendships with over a million years. Separate social lives is fine in marriage, especially if there is substantial and well-placed trust between husband and wife, but the majority of your time is best spent together.

So, find someone you like to be around!

Trust

This is a no-brainer. I’ve been in relationships in which trust was a major issue, especially as I was usually the more social of the pair (although not by much — I usually date intense introverts, I guess.)

What’s funny is that I used to get offended that my husband wasn’t jealous or concerned with my friendships with men, which, looking back, is really insane. If I’d had to argue every time I wanted to socialize with anyone from the opposite sex, our marriage would have really struggled.

I’ve since learned that it wasn’t that he didn’t think I was able to attract men — not at all, in fact. He just trusted my mind, and that I was sincerely committed to our life and our family, and wouldn’t do anything to compromise the life we’ve built.

And that trust is reciprocated. It isn’t always easy, of course, but we are two people who have grown not only comfortable and secure in our relationship, but also in ourselves, so trusting each other has only become easier as the years pass.

Also, we’re old farts now, so there’s little cause for concern. (I kid, except for the old farts bit.)

There are obviously so many more subjects that I could cover when it comes to marriage — there’s a reason that the marriage advice game is a multi-million dollar industry. I also would never consider myself to be an expert, of course, as there are couples who are marathoning along with several decades under their belts.

My marriage has been a constant source of interest to me, however, and I have learned a lot through it all. Now that I’ve listed a few of the things that I find to be keys to marital success, I hope that you, too, can find someone with whom you can love, laugh, and sometimes want to bash over the head.