Newlywed Bliss

Maybe times and people have changed a lot since this phrase was coined. Maybe at some point there was such a thing as "newlywed bliss." Two people madly in love had a beautiful wedding and a romantic honeymoon and then settled down to the first year of their marriage like two charming lovebirds in a cozy little nest and lapped up the minutes of heaven until their first anniversary tolled. Then they ate the nasty, freezer-burned top tier of their wedding cake and had their first fight.

That's the scene our society foretells for each happy couple today. Only it isn't true. On your wedding day your guests give you knowing grins and say, "Enjoy the honeymoon phase while it lasts because this is the best part of your marriage." Of course they were only teasing, right? Well, teasing or not, you laugh it off only to find yourself just a week after that fateful wedding reception saying, "This is the best part? WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

The truth is, newlyweds spend the first year or longer of their marriage reconciling themselves to the "mistake" they've made. It's a simple thing called GETTING MARRIED and it is the easiest thing in the world to do, not to mention downright thrilling, and the hardest thing to live with after it's done. I'm not saying marriage is bad. I'm a hard-headed Christian and I don't believe anything without believing it with all my guts. And I believe marriage is God's primary means of revealing His nature to mankind, if we actually fulfill our vows to one another. Divorce, likewise, is equally revelatory, in that it shows how destructive and desolate life is when we turn away from God (because an ended marriage destroys your whole life and mirrors what one's life is like without God). That being explained, I defend myself against anyone who might read this and think I have a negative attitude toward marriage. I don't. I have a negative attitude toward our society that teaches that if marriage isn't ultra-satisfying from the beginning you made a mistake.

Of course marriage isn't satisfying at first! Who on earth knows what they're getting into until they've already done it? Even if you've been married before, your second spouse is a different person than your first and the dynamics of life and oneness with that person will be a whole new world to you that you've got to get familiar with and learn how to function with. Even people who live together before marriage can find themselves surged by qualms after getting married, because the expectations and functions of a live-in arrangement are not the same as the ones those same people will have for each other as a married couple. There's this whole fulfillment quality that we all dream up for our ideal spouse, little considering that the Mr/Miss Right we choose to honor with our expectations has no clue what we need or want. Expecting your marriage to be satisfying right from the start is like expecting your baby to be born able to take care of itself. There's a specific starting point to both situations and no way around it.

My brother-in-law is in the middle of a terrible divorce after only ten months of marriage. And everyone I talk to about this reacts in the same way. "No fair! I was a newlywed at one time too and I stuck it out! Doesn't she know that the first year is the hardest?" And while I agree with their sentiments and feel them myself, it also breaks my heart because I realize that no, she doesn't know. She doesn't know that this time in her life can't help but be outrageously difficult, painful, and disappointing. She doesn't know that expectations have to be put aside in favor of mercy for her husband's failings and the mistakes he makes that hurt her. He has learned the hard way that compassion should triumph over agreement. She has taken back the promises she made him because she couldn't bully him into being what she wants him to be and she can't forgive him for that, or love who he is. It's no uncommon experience to find that the person you adored before marriage is now someone you can't stand, not because he/she changed, but because what you liked in a dating relationship is often what you don't like in a marriage relationship.

Well, in God's mind, marriage is supposed to involve giving up yourself for the benefit of the other person, just like Christ did for all of mankind. It's not about having a relationship that makes you feel good, just like loving God isn't about getting your wants satisfied, but about sacrificial worship, offering all of yourself to Him because you love Him. (That sums up the verse that says "Husbands love your wives and wives respect your husbands," for those of you who thought husbands were getting off too easy with a command to love and wives were enslaved by the word "respect" [Ephesians 5:22-33].)

There's this important aspect of all things in life that so easily gets overlooked when it comes to marriage in our instant-gratification society. It's called "learning." Progress is gained by learning and practicing until we get it right. And we all know learning doesn't happen overnight. Rarely is there a simple day's work of learning to be done, in school, a new job, a first baby, etc. Oh, it's easy to GET married. But only then can you start learning how to be married with the person you find yourself married to. Guess what? THAT TAKES YEARS. I've been married five and a half years, and I've only now begun to feel confident that I know how to do this. Frankly, the first five years are a grim memory. A learning process that was challenging and painful and disappointing, but served to form the concrete relationship that I have with my husband now. I suppose you could say that those very struggles are the reason I am still married today, because without them he and I wouldn't have a clue how to manage life with each other and satisfy each other. If you don't survive the initial insanity of newlywed life, you will fail in having the marriage of a lifetime.

I'm glad I kind of knew that when I first said "I do." It is what kept me faithful in the times I didn't think I could make it, or didn't want to try, or didn't want to let him try. And through sharing with friends about my brother-in-law's divorce I've learned that really each one of us experiences lots of doubt about surviving a new marriage. The couples who are still in it years down the road and who succeed at it are merely the ones who kept trying to make something good of it. The ones who realized that newlywed bliss wasn't the key to a good marriage, but rather patience in the multitudinous battles, forgiveness (a love that covers all wrongdoings), compassion rather than a forced agreement, and mercy for all shortcomings. Those things take lots of practice, but getting good at them is a must if you want the marriage of your dreams.

A good marriage is a skill mastered gradually through failure and success by two dedicated, hardworking people. Newlywed bliss is an oxymoron. Yes, marriage is satisfying and fulfilling. But the bliss isn't instantaneous. It's crafted over the years, and gets sweeter with time. You never have that if you don't work hard to attain it and stay faithful to maintaining it with the person you married.