a few marriage thoughts
In my single years everyone would tell me to cherish the time to myself. I’d ‘never get that time back’, I was ‘free’ and would look back on those times fondly. That was a bunch of bs and being married has been infinitely better than my life before. I’m not “tied down”, I’m secure, supported, and challenged to make more of my days than before.
That said no marriage is without its woes and our premarital counselor told us something I revisit often - that we often would be tempted to turn against each other, but we should always try to keep it “us against the world”.
I notice when we have a lot going on, external stressors, hardships of many kinds, etc. that sometimes my husband becomes the target of my misery instead of the things that are happening to us. Things have become really hard and I’m looking for someone to blame for the hardship and he inevitably steps into the line of fire. The truth is, however, he is victim in the same tribulation. He isn’t the perpetrator. It’s us against this hardship, us against the financial burden, us against the exhaustion of being new parents, us against sickness and disease. Repositioning ourselves side-by-side has saved us many times.
I think people who are introspective and self-critical are especially susceptible to these kinds oversights in marriage. As intimacy increases, the spouse begins to occupy space in the bubble of “self” belonging to the other person and is now also an acceptable target for attack. Attacking, blaming, shaming, demeaning your spouse then becomes a self-depreciating act. Taming the inner voice is a lifelong and worthy pursuit that is the priority of few and a necessity of all. In the self-critical person, ignoring it reaps consequences that reach well beyond the individual to infect the most sacred relationships.