Third time is a charm

              The idea of me sharing any sort of wisdom on marriage seems a little bit like a first-year law student writing about how to succeed as a lawyer. But nevertheless, here I go. I have been married just over a year now, but few people know I was also married once before in my late 20's.  There was another "almost marriage" in between. Maybe I would be better at writing about how to get a man to propose since clearly I have no struggles there. As someone who has received three engagement rings, aren’t I pro? A pro at almost getting it right and a pro at failing!  All before age 30.

              Each of these experiences have taught me different things and frankly, if it weren't for first two experiences, I might not have the successful, good marriage that I do now. I remember getting engaged at 27 (this is #1) like it was yesterday. Everyone around me was getting married and engaged and I wanted to be apart of the club. I wanted to experience all the rites of passage: the engagement post on social media, the dress shopping, the shower, the venue touring. It was fun and I remember getting completely wrapped up in all of the fluff. I don’t remember once ever asking myself if this was the right decision or what I wanted my marriage to look like. I spent months and months planning an event that would last 4 hours instead of planning the actual marriage. You can see where this is going. We didn't make it. Not even 6 months.  It's amazing how living together and actually being married can show you just how much you don't want to be married. I remember people asking me over and over "didn't you know before?"  I've answered it a lot of different ways over the years, but the truth is, there is a difference between knowing and admitting the truth.  The truth has the power to break hearts and ruin lives (at least in the short term).  The best piece of advice I can give anyone who may be feeling that uncertainty in their chest is to pump the brakes. Get off the merry-go-round. Don't go forward with a major life decision unless you are one million percent ready. And what does ready even mean? I guess it's different for everyone,  but ask yourself and your partner the hard questions. How does each of us feel about children? How about household responsibilities? How do we think we should spend our money? These answers can certainly evolve over time, but being on the same page is huge. You need to partner with someone who shares your values. And only you can examine what your core values are. I know mine have changed tremendously from 27 to 37. My best piece of wisdom from my failed marriage is this: Don’t get so caught up planning the wedding that you forget to plan a life with that person. If it all feels like a runaway train, jump off. You might tear your dress and lose a glass slipper, but in the end, it will be for the best.

              I remember the second time I got engaged. I know for sure that I was in love. It was the opposite of the previous experience in how it unfolded. I couldn't wait to be married to this person. I felt like he was the star of the show and I was the back up. Sounds silly, doesn't it? I was just getting started in my career and I remember lacking confidence in myself. My fiancé was the rockstar. He was the cool one. He had the solid career. And I was just….there. Or at least that is how I felt. What I learned from this relationship were lessons about myself and not so much about marriage.  I spent a couple years feeling lost during that time period. I didn't even really have my own place until I moved in with him. I learned quickly that we really had different interests and different views on marriage.  I have always thought it was healthy to end up with someone who has his own interests and his own sense of self. But at the same time, if you don't have any shared interests, that is a problem too. A big one actually. Sometimes you can love someone and he or she is just not right for you.  I don't mean to be vague, but it's the easiest way to say it. You just want different things and you have different ideas of what marriage looks like. I am grateful that we did not get married, even though at the time I felt like the world was ending and I was the biggest failure of all time. I was 30 years old and I had been proposed to twice and yet, somehow screwed them both up.  Wasn't I walking red flag? Maybe. Or maybe it's just the way it went. I try not to judge too much, because what does it really matter? Those chapters of my life were some of the most painful, but they made me wiser and stronger as cliché as it sounds. I believe the best phrase for that time period of my life would be "growing pains." And yes, it hurt like hell.

              If I could look into a crystal ball and talk to that young woman, I would tell her this:  Find out who you are before you get married. Take however long it takes to get comfortable with yourself. Become someone you like and you are proud of. You are never someone's plus one.  Don’t you ever change who you are to mold into someone else's life. In fact, make sure you know who you are before you enter the relationship and then you won't feel the need to mold yourself into anyone's life.

              And so here I am now, 37 years old, 9 months pregnant and married to the absolute best person for me. And yes, we are still sort of in that honeymoon period and we haven't reached our second anniversary yet, but I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt I finally got it right! He was worth 35 years waiting for. Did I get lucky? Did I have a fairy godmother or a matchmaker who found the person who checks every single box? Not quite. I was single for a long while before I met my husband. I dated a lot. Like a lot. I was working on myself and looking for a partner kind of at the same time. I was dating around but I was also dating myself.  I finally had my own place, my own stuff, and my own furniture (sounds ridiculous but after a few failed relationships, you may realize you don't actually own much besides clothes and shoes). I won't tell you I was "living my best life" (I cringe at that phrase) when I met him. I was doing well, but I wasn't perfect.  I knew who I was and I felt established in my job and my friendships, but I was also struggling with some personal issues. I share that because I think sometimes conventional dating wisdom tells us that we need to be in the best place and be our best selves when we meet the right person. To a certain degree, that is true. But I also firmly believe when you meet the right person, it works because it's the right person. And what does the right person actually mean?  I remember once making a list of all the qualities a future husband should have. My husband is a wonderful, loving, amazing person and every day I truly remind myself of that, but let's get something straight: he does not check all the boxes. No one does. In fact, some of those boxes don't even matter as much as you think they do. For example, he is not a big gift-giver.  He doesn’t really do flowers. And this is not a criticism. This is just him. He is frugal and sensible and like me, aversive to clutter and waste.  10 years ago, if you told me that about a future partner, I would have run. I LOVED GIFTS. I used to make lists. I had these expectations of what showing love should look like and it almost always included gifts. But when I met my husband, those gifts seemed so incredibly unimportant. Maybe it was shift in my own values. We didn't even really do rings when we got married. We have really simple basic ones, but neither of us wear them because neither of us really like jewelry.

              My husband isn’t perfect and neither am I. Of course, we fight and disagree. I can't think of any marriage where that doesn't happen. I didn't happen to find the one who guy who doesn't have annoying habits. In fact, I think I actually have more annoying habits than he does and I am absolutely without question the messier one. But I did find someone who values marriage and wants to be my partner and wants to be a dad. I found someone that I wake up next to and I smile. We laugh at each other most days and we both genuinely enjoy each other's company.  We say we love each other every day, even on days when we fight or we are on one another's nerves. And I think we both view marriage as a verb. We "do marriage" every day. Yes, we love each other and are attracted to each other (huge!) but we also actively choose to be good partners and share in all the messy and the hard stuff.  We are not just happily married on social media. At my friend's wedding a few years ago, she spoke about finding the person that you can be happy with on a rainy Tuesday night. Life is not always going out to dinner and parties, at least for me. That has always resonated with me. When I met my husband, I wanted someone who was comfortable with a regular "boring" life, but wasn't afraid of the hard stuff.  So what does that look like?  When I am sick on the couch "being pregnant" he is the man who does all the laundry and folds it. He may not (ie: definitely does not) do it the way I would do it, but he does it because he is my partner and he cares. When I cook dinner, he loads the dishwasher. It sounds silly, but these things matter in a partnership, especially when there are children.  While we are on the same page with values, I know that our brains operate very differently. I thought I needed to marry someone who is as verbal and communicative as me. Turns out, that's almost no one 😊  A prime example would be if you looked at our string of text messages. I type long detailed paragraphs and I ask questions. It's almost like a stream of consciousness.  He responds almost always with "o.k." But I've learned that we have different communication styles and how he texts me (or doesn't) doesn't mean anything. I mention that because I know in the dating world how much emphasis is placed on texting. We analyze every word, every response time, and every emoji or lack thereof.  A guy who types "o.k." after 3 days of no contact may be just as interested as the guy who answers immediately with full sentences. I say this because I married the guy who didn't text back for days. To this day, many of my messages never receive a response.

              Marriage is hard, but I truly believe it shouldn't be impossible. In fact, it's actually pretty amazing when you're with the right person. It’s like a forever sleepover party with the love of your life, but you also have to do chores and go to work.  It's not a fairytale by any means, but it can absolutely be a beautiful love story.   I wrote this post because I spent years and years of my life trying to figure out how I had failed at love so many times. I carried that burden for a long time and used to joke I was cursed. Turns out, there was no curse.  I also wrote this because I want to dispel any myth (at least from my perspective) that marriage is the key to happiness. It's not. There is also no perfect marriage. Sorry, Jerry Maguire, but nobody completes anybody. Life has some really amazing ups and really crappy downs. That is true for everyone whether you are married or not. But I say it's far easier and better to go through those ups and downs with someone else who chooses to be with you just as much as you choose that person.