The elephant
Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room.
A twice-divorced man giving advice on how to be happily married?
Indulge me for one second. Marriages usually start out well, then plateau somewhere between euphoria and misery.
Here’s what I think went right and led to 20 good years of being married….and what I think went wrong and ultimately led to divorce.
An initial explosion
I was hopelessly, madly, insanely in love at 23, and again at 32 with the women who I ultimately married.
The search for such deep passion started when I was 15 and sat in the back of the bus next to a beautiful, sexy 16-year-old girl who lived in my neighborhood.
I had a girlfriend, who was my age, and my bus mate had a 26-year-old boyfriend who was a lawyer.
We were both enamored with the loves of our lives.
We said it felt like our skin was on fire with desire — with flames shooting out of our bodies intense enough to burn a house to the ground.
All I was doing was French kissing my 15-year-old girlfriend, moving my hands over her dressed breasts in an awkward circular motion….while my mature-beyond-her-years bus mate described precisely how the lawyer rammed her like a jackhammer. It was so pornographic she probably should’ve waited to do that particular sex act until college.
Despite the differences in sexual maturity, we were both in that brain-changing, neurologically transforming, fresh-love stage — where colors are more vibrant, flowers smell more fragrant, and there’s a skip in our step.
It didn’t matter that I never got past the making-out stage with that 15-year-old because it gave me a taste of how attraction, desire, and supernatural passion made me feel.
From that moment on, those powerful feelings and emotions were what I defined as love.
Both of my ex-wives started out with that kind of “on fire with desire” romance. And for the first couple of years, that ‘initial explosion’ was vital to our strong start. Our happy marriage was born as a result of it.
You can’t start a fire without a spark.
Yep, she chooses me…
….out of all the men in the world….she picked little old me.
I didn’t beg or bribe her…I did promise her the world, but who doesn’t?
There is almost no greater feeling than mutual love. The gut feeling the woman you just can’t stop thinking about is also thinking about you.
Asking someone to pledge the rest of their life to you, and having them say yes, is a beautiful experience.
For a while (or forever) those verbal commitments transform you into a united powerful force.
Even though I’ve had two that didn’t go the distance, I’ve never regretted getting or being, married.
Growing on each other
Of course, not every marriage begins like Romeo and Juliet.
The most spectacular, fragrant rose begins as a tiny seed needing water and nourishment to grow.
But whenever someone tells me they married their best friend, I wonder if they subconsciously or purposefully skipped the out-of-control, can’t-eat-can’t-sleep phase, as a trade-off for compatibility and camaraderie.
Of course, having similar backgrounds and interests matters. And people can grow on each other.
But for me, you’ve got to have those initial butterflies to ultimately develop romantic love.
It’s that initial big bang of passion that motivates and propels the joy of marriage and is vital to its evolution.
Everything cannot be 50–50.
I recognize we don’t live in the 1950s where the man was the king of the castle and the wife obeyed him. Most agree, making decisions together is the best of all worlds.
But it always works better when one person takes on the role of, let’s call it, house manager. This does not mean one person controls or is the boss of the other. It means it is enormously fortunate (and convenient) when one person prefers to take on the responsibilities of paying bills, making appointments, keeping up with chores, and booking vacations…you know, the stuff you either love or hate to do.
When both people in a marriage want to “manage the house,” it turns routine decisions into stupid, disputed messes.
If you’re lucky, one of you will want to assume the role of camp counselor and the other, camper. Not because one seeks power over the other, but because they genuinely enjoy those roles within the marriage.
Can two obsessive-compulsive, bossy, need-to-be-in-charge people be happy together? Perhaps.
But don’t underestimate the power of compatibility. Pair it with romance and attraction and it’s a good ingredient for a happy marriage.
Do things
Both of my exes were homebodies. They loved to relax and chill at home. I was the one with ants in his pants for adventure.
I would drag them to festivals, plan three-day weekends, or just go out to eat. I celebrated everything.
I could have offered to stay home more often, but every time we went somewhere we appreciated it. Even if it was simply the feeling of successfully completing a physical journey.
I miss the “doing things” part of being married and highly recommend doing something fun together, often.
That’s what memories are made of and can definitely lead to a happy marriage.
Commitment itself is a turn-on
Being explosively in love is a primary prerequisite to a happy marriage but don’t underestimate the power and joy of commitment.
The transition from the honeymoon stage to a more settled, less mind-blowing, state of existence is like riding the Tilt-A-Whirl at a carnival. The very first time you get on it, you’re terrified and excited and loaded with adrenaline. The tenth time you ride it, it’s still fun, but not in the same way.
Familiarity can be boring, or in a marriage can feel like a letdown or that something is missing.
Yet there is something warm and comforting and genuinely spiritual about building a life with someone and sticking to it because you honor the commitment.
The commitment itself is a turn-on. Precisely because it’s based largely on blind trust.
We hope our spouse is committed to the same “life plan” and will be loyal to the marriage, but we don’t know for sure.
We trust.
We hope.
And as days turn into months, then years, we know something special has been created.
Commitment feels good and it makes for a happy marriage.
When the train goes off the track
You know those Christmas trains you see during the holidays? Every now and then the train starts to wobble off the track, but it usually self-corrects, dragging itself back into alignment and moving on.
Every marriage occasionally goes off the tracks. Sometimes it’s a matter of just chugging along until the wheels re-align.
In some cases, divorce makes sense. If there’s cheating or violence, it’s likely unrepairable.
For me, it came down to the legal term, irreconcilable differences, a fancy way of saying, “We disagree on so many things, we should probably call it quits.”
Because there were still reasons to stay together, the decision to divorce was a treacherous and emotionally draining process.
Since I’m opening a vein here, I will be a little more precise about why both my marriages collapsed.
My first wife missed her home country of Portugal and we were both control freaks. We (I, mostly) were young and immature (23 and 24) and could never settle into a comfort zone. Every day ended up in a fight over something. After 7 years of trying, we divorced and she moved back to Portugal.
My second wife and I got along quite well. We had that ‘initial explosion’ of passion and were married almost 13 years. In our 11th year, she had a calling for a Bahama-based Kingdom missionary lifestyle which became all-consuming.
I am profoundly secular so we were no longer on the same wavelength or pathway. We didn’t have explosive fights or infidelity, we simply had completely different goals and philosophies on how to move forward with our lives. Unlike my first wife, where we simply were not compatible, I have some regret about the divorce of my second wife. We remain close friends, but part of me wonders if I should have stuck it out and tried harder to make it work.
On some level, I regret not keeping the oath. Who doesn’t dream of a life-long love?
Forever after
I loved being married.
I was happy most of the time.
And while, on some level, I wish I had remained committed, I learned an enormous amount about love and life and what it means to care for another person in ways that are superhuman.
A marriage can end, but never really dies.
I still sometimes get butterflies as I did at 15.
I know I can be happy alone, but there is an energy inside me that seeks a partner.
And if I’m lucky, I’ll find someone who gives the train time to get back on the track when it slips off.
Someone who wants to build a forever after, one day at a time.
Someone who wants to be happily married.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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The post This Is How To Be Happily Married appeared first on The Good Men Project.
