“so how’s married life?"

It is SUCH a weird thing to identify with myself as a married woman. Sometimes inside I still feel like a teenager or young adult, like at the core not much has changed other than years and experiences, and I’m still a little girl. And by all accounts I am a relatively young adult, a young person, but certainly no more a teenager. It just seems that we wait so long to become a “grown up” and then as time passes, without even realizing it, we all of a sudden have become one. It just happens. And sometimes I can’t reconcile that, I can’t even fathom that that’s the case. But it’s happened and it is. 

Anyhoo, this rambling is originating from the fact that I recently had an interview with a friend where I was her research participant. The “theme” was surrounding recently married young women and their evolved (and ever-evolving) perceptions of marriage. For some reason, not sure why, I was nervous about doing this interview. Most of the topics are things that I’ve pondered before, with myself, friends, and even Rob. But somehow articulating them in this way was a little nerveracking, a little soulful self-examination can be a tad intimidating.

These were some of the questions (and roughly where I went with my responses):

What comes to mind when you hear the word marriage?

This question stumped me almost because I’m not even sure what does come to mind. Like marriage in general or my marriage specifically? I took it as a little bit of both. In words - union, partnership, togetherness, sharing, a coming together of lives and experiences.

How has your understanding of marriage changed over various points in your life?

In childhood, I viewed marriage as an idealistic and attainable natural progression of life, sort of the be all and end all and purpose to everything. Very fairy tale-ish, prince and princess, the way things are meant to be, happily ever after.

In adolesence, it became cynical, eyes opened to the stark reality that some marriages, or really NO marriages, are all hunky dory and perfect and shining bright.

In adulthood, marriage became more of a practical thing based on a mutual love and understanding between myself and my love. It was born not of expectation or natural progression, but from pure love for another individual. From the wanting to share my life with another person and wanting to bask in the glory of what that could mean and would mean. From wanting a partner to share life experiences and memories with, to LIVE life with.

What has changed for you since you said “I do”?

I don’t feel like anything has drastically or obviously changed, it’s been more of a gradual slow realization that things are different without this stark in-your-face “I’m married now, everything is different”. It wasn’t like we woke up the next day and all of a sudden everything had changed, it sort of felt the same. Just that we had a kick ass party and a surreal dream-like time the night before. But everyone asks you everytime they see you, “So how’s married life?” and I feel like I don’t know how to answer that question. It’s good, it’s great, it’s so-so, it’s more of the same. Don’t get me wrong, I’m over the moon happy and love playing house (except we’re not really playing anymore), but it’s like people expect this concrete description of what your new married life is like, and well it just IS, like what do you want form me people?

The one thing that has changed though, in the context of me and the hubby, is that our relationship has taken on this sort of deeper level and meaning. I feel more in love, more intimately in love with him now than I ever have before. I’m not sure how or why that necessarily is, it’s not that we sit there and profess our love to one another or make any grand romantic gestures or anything, but i feel in making our vows, we’ve sort of eternally sealed our love, we’ve made the ultimate commitment to one another and that symbolically has meant so much and manifested itself into how I feel about him and how we relate to one another. There is a difference. He’s my family now, he’s more a part of me than he ever was, he is me.

How do you experience being a wife instead of a girlfriend?

I don’t feel I’ve really even connected with the term of girlfriend because we were engaged for such a long period of time that I havent been a girlfriend in quite some time. But I do have a difficult time with identifying with myself as a “wife”, as a married woman. I still feel at times, like i’m 19 or 20 and a marriage is in the far off distance of possibility. I can’t seem to reconcile that this is me and this is my life, I feel like I have to grow into the word. I am me, and Rob and I are us, but the words husband and wife don’t yet seem to be a part of that “us”. It’s weird and I’m not sure why exactly, but the 2 concepts feel so polarly opposite, even though it’s what I’ve wanted for so long. And i do want it, I guess I just still can’t believe I’m THERE you know?

Since you’ve been married, have you noticed any changes in relation to how you identify with:

A) yourself?

Again, hard to reconcile the concept of marriage and plain old me, but it’s been 6 months so I suppose I’ll get there at some point. I also tend to oppositely feel this inclination to fulfill the ideal of “wife”. Maybe it’s a way overcompensating, so that I start to feel like one, by becoming Debbie Domestic, cooking and cleaning, the whole deal. I do it, willingly and want to do it perfectly, be a good little wifey. I thought I was the opposite of that. But apparently I like to take care of my home and my man.

B) your husband? 

I feel we’ve grown together, become closer, more committed to our familial existence, our joint experience. He comes first.

C) your career? 

I don’t think anything has changed in regards to my drive to succeed and have a specific career in place, but I am more inclined to go home earlier rather than staying late to finish something. The only thing on my mind at the end of the day is going home to my husband. In the same respect of putting family first, I’m thinking more about my goal of starting a family rather than getting immediately promoted. Both are a priority but family and life are light years ahead in priority and importance at this point.

D) your family? 

The largest change with my family has been more so the moving away from home rather than specifically being married, I see them less and miss them more and that is something that is hard to deal with sometimes.

E) your friends?

Defintely in terms of how I identify with my friends. As I’m only 25, none of my childhood/teenagehood friends are married. So it’s hard for me to be “the married lady” and not because of anything that anyone has put on me, I guess it’s more put on by myself. I can’t be the same way I was before. While I feel I’m still the same person, my circumstances have changed. I have more facets to me and they have influenced who I am and how I act and what I do, etc. Sometimes I feel like I want to be the young and fun version of myself and be carefree and limitless, but I’m accountable now to another person who I share my life with. It’s not just me anymore, there’s more, he’s more.

Things have evolved and can’t go back to the way they used to be. I can’t shoot the shit and do stupid things like I did before, not to to say I’m all evolved and civilized now, I still do stupid shit. But now I’m more aware of it, because my awareness involves another person. It’s not like before, when you’re in a relationship but you still live seperate lives, it’s one life now, one shared existence. Every decision involves the other person, it just does. That’s not archaic or anti-feminist, it’s true. And it goes vice versa, give and take. I’m still young and want to have fun, but I can’t go back, it’s a matter of learning to strike a balance at this point, I don’t need to be an old maid for crying out loud.

Do you think your culture influences your idea of marriage? If so, how?

Definitely. A European experience has led to an extremely traditional meaning associated to marriage with defined gender roles etc. Which are debatable and I’m filling into quite nicely for reasons I am surprised by and can’t quite understand. But I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with tradition either. It’s nice to have an ideal. Things don’t always end up ideally, but striving towards something is commendable at any rate. So what if I want to be a happy wife and have a happy life and cook meals and scrub the floors. Rob does stuff too, it’s not like I sit there and darn his socks, I feel we are a mutual teamwork extravaganza and balance the responsibilites quite well, just because mine are more typically feminine and his more typically masculine, who cares? It’s nice to have a house and have our roles and fit them.

Culture also instills the sanctity and intended eternal permancence of marriage. And while i’m not blind to the fact that things change and we won’t always be “newlyweds”, I too believe in the “forever” of marriage, if you don’t have faith in that, then what’s the point at all????

——————————————————

Anyhoo that was that. Interesting things to ruminate on, a lot to think about. Especially surrounding the fact that recently it was 6 months of marriage for me and the hubby. Crazy to say the least!

[image by Christian Badanjak]