Fundamental Stuff We All Need To Know About 'This Marriage Thing'

This marriage thing! How do you get it to work? Why does it seem so easy to get married but so hard to stay married, or to stay happily married? What do we do wrong? What should we do that we do not do at all? There have been many books written on marriage, but below is a regular married black dude who has been married for some time and writes to share fundamental truths about marriage that he has learnt over time.

I’m no relationship expert – I’m just a dude trying to be happily married. After almost of 10 years of trying, I’m understanding some fundamental truths about marriage that bind our experiences together.

1. The truth about marriage is that it’s a general concept uniquely defined by the people in the situation. Everyone can tell you about about marriage, but absolutely no one can tell you about your marriage – or the marriage you wish to have. It’s yours to define. Unless you are Ted Cruz – then you help define marriage for millions of others.

2 .The truth about marriage is, it’s a process of successes and failures. And both of you should be hoping to build on the successes and learn from the failures.

3. The truth about marriage is that they’re all defined by expectations spoken or unspoken. And unspoken expectations try to erode every marriage. Too many of us make permanent promises with temporary expectations.

4. The truth about marriage is we have far too few marriage mentors. Mainly because most of us spend our whole lives trying to figure it out for ourselves. It’s difficult to teach what you don’t know.

Marriage is not a game of scorekeeping.

Every good marriage is about service. Too few of us truly know how to voluntarily serve.

I know these are general terms, but far too many people in the age of the Internet are spending their time researching solutions rather than turning to their partner and implementing solutions. We treat our marriages like we treat our lives – doing the same things today while quietly wishing for something different tomorrow.

Life doesn’t work that way.

If you want to make your marriage better, you have to face your spouse and face each other’s expectations of one another and more importantly, of yourselves.

How do you expect to conduct yourself in your marriage and with your spouse?

What can your spouse reasonably and consistently expect from you?

This year for Mother’s Day, I packed bags for my son and I and left town for the entire weekend. When my wife left for work that Friday morning, I left her a handwritten card, a gourmet peanut butter and chocolate cupcake, and a little spending cash. Her instructions were to enjoy her time to herself. Unplug from the family and be selfish.

A few days before the weekend, my wife and I got into a heated discussion (that’s how I like to describe it) about my disappointment with the amount of one on one attention I was getting for the past few weeks, and how distant she was being with the family overall. As a husband, I get much of my strength directly from my wife and her ability to be receptive to my needs. For me, her affection translates into fuel as much as her alone time fuels her ability to be available for the family. It’s the chicken or the egg paradox. And although I was already at my wits end by the time her special weekend came around, I still wanted to serve her needs. I’m glad to.

It’s not that the service isn’t difficult for me. It’s that at my core, I believe she is worth serving.

And I can express my hope that to her, I’m worth the same.

From there, it’s up to us and no one else to define exactly what that service will look like and whether or not each of us are living up to our end of the agreed bargain.

One day our discussions will heat up – and we’ll try again.

We all have a lifetime of struggle to get it right – if we’re lucky.

5. The truth about marriage, is that every single one is about daily choices to put the welfare of the union above the welfare of the self – with the belief that, the sum of the parts are greater than the parts themselves. The truth about marriage is that, if you don’t believe this already about your marriage, you’re in deep trouble from day one.

But I’m just another regular dude on the Internet trying to figure it out myself.

Written by Isom Kuade