a real life look at marriage, two months in

Marriage.

It's great. I mean, really great. Being with my best friend (no more long distance!) everyday is incredible. And, since it's the newest thing in my life, it makes sense for me to write about it.

Garrett and I are 61 days married. Sometimes that feels like a long time - like I can hardly remember what it was like when we weren't husband and wife. I look back at pictures from March, April, and early May (we wed on May 18), and they feel like distant memories. Isn't that STRANGE? It feels strange to me. Some moments I find myself almost pinching my arm, thinking, "Can this be real?! I'm married!" After all, I went from a one person unit to a two person family in the span of a 30 minute ceremony. Other times, I find myself mourning my singleness. That probably sounds weird from a newlywed, so I'll elaborate. I'm not unhappy that I'm no longer single. I married the love of my life, God ordained our union, and we are one, body and soul - WOW! However, I sometimes miss just hanging out with my girlfriends, or going on spur-of-the-moment road trips, or staying up late, or coming home and chatting with my roomies. Garrett can chat, but there's just something different about deep emotional talks with girls, and "deep emotional" talks with boys :)

A lot of people have asked me, "How's married life?!" I think the answer they want to hear is, "It's AMAZING! ABSOLUTELY BLISSFUL!" And while there are moments that I feel that way, the truth is, more often than not, I don't. The real answer, the one you don't hear very often, although I'd venture to say many newlyweds have felt this at some moment in time, is, "It's a hard, challenging, frustrating, testing, what-have-I-gotten-myself-into kind of relationship, but absolutely worth it." Can I get an amen??

I'm not pretending to be a relationship or marriage expert - quite the contrary! I'm a novice. I've made a lot of mistakes, and I'm only 2 months in! However, I like to learn, and do so as quickly as I can, so after 8 weeks and 5 days, this is a snapshot of a few things I have learned that I really wish someone had told me:

1. You still need same-gender time.

I knew I would still spend time with my girlfriends, you know, just being girls. What I didn't realize was that I would NEED this time. Part of me figured since Garrett made me so happy before we were married, when we only saw each other once a month or so, I wouldn't crave time with anyone else. After all, he's my spouse, right? My soulmate? So shouldn't I be completely content being with him and only him, forever? Nope. When I first started feeling this, I thought I was broken. But thankfully, the Lord soothed my anxieties and reminded me that He's the only one, in and of himself, that can bring me satisfaction. He created me to be VERY relational, thriving on time with people. Therefore, limiting myself to one person, albeit my husband and closest human companion, is still not how he made me to function.

2. Your life is pretty much the same (except it isn't).
Before I knew that I was going to marry Garrett, I always imagined marriage as this fuzzy thing that would happen sometime in the future, and I would have it all together, and we would wake up laughing in the morning, cling our coffee cups at breakfast with a sparkle in our teeth, and cook a gourmet dinner together every night, with wine and roses and fancy clothes. Reality check. When morning comes, I still want to hit the snooze button for the seventh time, breakfast may or may not come with a side of stress (depending on the day's responsibilities), and while dinner might be tasty, there's always a pile of dishes to be washed afterwards. Life doesn't magically become perfect when you get married. The same mess that was there before is still there - except now, it's doubled. Now instead of the dishes once a week, we do them every other day. And oh, the laundry! No, life carries on as normal, and now I have someone else's needs to be concerned with. It's no longer just about me. Now, my mess is his mess, and vice versa. And for this thing to work, his needs must be more important to me than mine. It's a difficult balance to master - I'm hoping I get there someday.

3. Your sex life is not like the movies.

Yes, I'm going to write about sex on my blog's maiden voyage. Nobody said this to me before, though, and I wish someone had. So I'm talking about it. No, sex is not like the movies. And sure, I'd heard that, but nobody told me HOW it isn't like the movies, so I was still thrown for a loop. Most everything I thought about being intimate was not quite right. Your clothes don't magically fall off. You aren't perfectly under the covers. And chances are, if you're a virgin when you marry, like I was, it won't be seamless and easy. There's no need for a lot of detail, but let's just say it took me a while to get the hang of. And that's okay! It's all new and still very exciting. I am SO glad that I waited to be intimate with only my husband.

Along those same lines...

4. Marriage is not just about having sex.
I think it's natural for most people who save themselves for marriage to believe (consciously or subconsciously) that marriage looks like 24/7 physical intimacy. But that's just not true. Maybe there are some couples who are more like rabbits than humans, but for us, it's not the case. Although this is the part of our relationship that has changed most drastically (from not doing to doing) it is not the focal point of our marriage. I thought it would be. After all, it's one of the hotter topics in the days and weeks leading up to the wedding, especially among friends who also saved or are saving themselves. And while it's absolutely wonderful, it's not everything.

5. You MUST have individual time with the Lord.
This is perhaps the most critical point I'm going to make. Going into marriage, I had this idea that each morning, as a couple, we would devote our first fruits of the day to God together and pray together. I thought in doing so, we would grow closer to the Lord than ever before. We've done that, fairly consistently so far, but after a few weeks my cup began to feel dry. I felt distant from the Lord, not closer, and I couldn't figure out why. I noticed that Satan began attacking me, and hard, in areas where he really loves to get in my ear. And yet, through the counsel of wise friends, God showed me that he still wants ME, not just US. He wants to be alone with me, as often as I will offer my time to him. And doing that has made all the difference in the world. I find that now, I understand even more the greatness of the love God has for me, just by experiencing marriage. The more time I spend faithfully with God, allowing him to love me and teach me and change me, the better I am at being a wife to Garrett. I am excited to see how, as my marriage to Garrett grows and matures, my relationship with my Father and Creator will be deepened and strengthened, and vice versa.

So that's it. After such a short time, and such little experience, God has been so good and so faithful to teach me things I didn't know before, to show me how to navigate through such unfamiliar territory. Maybe some of you have experienced, or are experiencing, similar moments or revelations. There are so many things that I still don't know, and even more that I don't even know that I don't know. Of a few things I'm certain: God loves me and I am his, and Garrett loves me and we are God's.