Monday, November 28, 2011

What I've Learned

Over the past four months, I have been learning so much about marriage, relationships, and love. By no means am I a professional, we'll leave that to couples who have been married 50 years. I'd say I'm quite the amateur. But compared to several months ago, I have learned so much. If you would have asked me six months ago what the most important quality is in a marriage, I probably would have said commitment or good communication. Now, I'd say those are definitely in the top 5, but I feel that the #1 most important quality a marriage can have is friendship. I have come to find that marriage (my marriage at least) is like 70% friendship and 30% passion/romance. Of course there are many other factors of a marriage, but I think that's the ratio of friendship to passion and romance. When it all comes down to it, your young, hot body is going to get old and saggy one day (haha, gross right?) and that attraction won't be there unless you have a solid friendship as a foundation. You have to like each other, not just love each other. And despite what the movies make you think, after time you can't be passionate 100% of the time with your lover/husband/boyfriend/whatever. I'm confident most single girls reading this will think this is absolutely horrific, but Sean is my buddy. Sometimes, we'll just be hanging out and I almost forget we are married. I'm just chillin with my best friend. 

There are a lot more ugly pictures of me and Sean, but these are the only ones I dare post.

I believe passion is temporary. Not romance. Romance can last forever. But I don't think romance is what most people think it is. What do I know? But for me (a twitter-patted newlywed), romance is when Sean randomly tells me how beautiful I look when I'm wearing no make up, glasses, my hair is in a frizzy knot, and I'm wearing his baggy clothes. It's when we're laying in bed with his arm around me and we stay up all night talking and laughing. Romance is when he plops his head in my lap and gives me puppy eyes that say "can I have a back rub?" It's when I come home from a long day at school and work and find a little stuffed animal puppy Sean surprised me with since he can't buy me a real one until we move into a house. It's our daily debates about random, pointless topics. I love that Sean and I debate and bicker often (there's a difference between that and arguing, we hardly argue). I think it's how we show that we care enough to tell each other the other person is wrong. It keeps things interesting. I have always loved this quote: "Arguing doesn't mean you hate each other, it means that you care enough to point out someones faults and help them put things right, if you stop arguing it means you've stopped caring." -Unknown.
Maybe I'm dead wrong on all of this stuff, we'll see as time passes and I learn more and more. This is just a ramble of some of my thoughts lately.
To conclude my randomness, here is a quote from a book called 7 Myths of Working Mothers by Suzanne Venker. It doesn't really have anything to do with what I was talking about earlier because Sean and I don't have children, but I think I can stretch it and make them fit together a little bit. It's always been one of my all-time favorite quotes.
"Most couples find that what they thought was romantic before they had children pales in comparison to their new found sense of romance as parents. Candlelight dinners are nice, yes. But they can't compare to the glance between a man and a women over the head of a sleeping child. They can't compare to the rush of emotion a women feels as she watches her husband make her child laugh. As Dale Hanson Bourke writes, "I wish my friend could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful always to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play 'bad guys' with his son. I think she should know that she will fall in love with her husband again for reasons she would now find very unromantic." And this is perhaps one of the greatest problems in young marriages. Because we are so caught up in here and now, in the fun and spontaneity of relationships, we overlook the romance of family. Indeed, moments of passion are fleeting, but real love lasts forever." 

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