Engagement and Marriage

What an exciting time, you just got engaged to the person of your dreams, and who you hope to be with for eternity! 

Now, you come off of that high from being engaged, and realize you have a wedding to plan! Where do we get married, who will we invite, what is our budget, what will we eat, will we have a reception, will we do a luncheon, what will be our colors, and the list goes on and on and on. 

It is interesting that we put more of a focus on the wedding, than the actual marriage. The marriage is what is the most important part, but we plan and cry, and fret over one day. You may find it interesting that people spend more time preparing to get their driver's license than they do to get a marriage license. 

Most of the time the planning for the marriage is between the mother and daughter. Should it be this way though? The marriage is between the soon-to-be husband and wife, and yet it is the mother and daughter planning it. If we are going to exert so much time into planning for one day, shouldn't it be between the husband and wife? There are some great opportunities right there to work together, which is what you will be doing for the rest of your lives. 

So how can we better prepare for a marriage, instead of the wedding day? I believe a lot of the preparation comes from the dating and courtship stages. In our dates, are we doing different activities, alone and with groups? Do we spend time with family? Do we interact well with kids? How do they react at a game? Do they get angry, and if they do are you okay with the way they got angry? Are you able to forgive one another quickly, or at all? Do you communicate well? Communicate through face to face interactions, texts, calling each other? I believe there are so many ways to prepare, but we must know the person we are going to marry. Those are important things to know about someone, and I realize there are many other ways to get to know someone, but for the sake of space I left some out. 

Well, you got married!! Yay!! Things are different now, from when you were dating. Now you live together, and you have to decide what you will share and how you will compromise things. What side of the bed do you sleep on, what is the temperature in the house, where do the plates go in the cupboards, who takes what car, who will be the breadwinner, or will we both bring in money, when will we have kids? The list goes on and on. 

I always thought when you got married life would be all honky dory! I thought you would have more money, you would always be happy, and that life overall was good. I have come to the realization that marriage is not perfect. Marriage is something you create. You can be happy, if you are willing to work for it! 

One of my favorite western movies McLintock, staring John Wayne shares some valuable insights on marriage. He says to his daughter, "Becky! Come here. Somethin' I ought to tell you. Guess now's as good a time as any. You're going to have every young buck west of the Missouri around here tryin' to marry you - mostly because you're a handsome filly, but partly because I own everything in this country from here to there. They'll think you're going to inherit it. Well, you're not. I'm going to leave most of it to, well, to the nation really, for a park where no lumbermen'll cut down all the trees for houses with leaky roofs. Nobody'll kill all the beaver for hats for dudes nor murder the buffalo for robes. What I'm going to give you is a 500 cow spread on the Upper Green River. Now that may not seem like much, but It's more than we had, your mother and I. Some folks are gonna say I'm doin' all this so I can sit up in the hereafter and look down on a park named after me, or that I was disappointed in you - didn't want you to get all that money. But the real reason, Becky, is because I love you, and I want you and some young man to have what I had, because all the gold in the United States Treasury and all the harp music in heaven can't equal what happens between a man and a woman with all that growin' together. I can't explain it any better than that." 

I love that, and I feel that is how marriage is suppose to be. You are going to have to give and take a little. It is going to be hard, but it will most definitely be worth it!