The Best Wedding Advice Often Goes Unheeded

When it comes to wedding advice, a bride-to-be is inundated with helpful but superficial suggestions from family and friends. Don't spend too much on your wedding -- use your money for a down payment on a house instead. Don't take your honeymoon right away -- wait until after both of you have recovered from your big day to go on a big trip. Most wedding advice is simply good common sense and scratches on the superficial aspects of marriage. However, the best wedding advice I ever received was ...

Cancel The Wedding

Kay was quiet on the drive back to my apartment. As one of my closest friends, we struggled through the awkwardness of adolescence together, complained about our parents' rigid house rules, nursed each other through first heartbreaks, and then our second and then third. Kay knew me in ways that my own parents never did -- she knew my dreams and goals. She knew how deeply I loved, and how I wanted to be loved in return. Kay lived with her own husband and family in another state and was visiting over the summer. That night, she met my fiance for the first time at a local cafe, where we all had dinner. She'd always wanted me to find Mr. Right like any good friend does, but her enthusiasm over my recent engagement had been quickly dampened by ... something. But what?

"He's controlling," she said as I pulled into the drive. "I'm honestly concerned about you marrying him ..."

I'd never heard her tone of voice register quite that serious. When I queried her further, she told me that while I was waiting at the restaurant bar, she'd had a brief conversation with my husband-to-be, during which time he told her how the cow was going to eat the cabbage, pardon the old Texas euphemism. I would not work outside of the home. I would follow his career wherever it took us without input or complaint. I would do this, I wouldn't do that ... my fiance's list of do's and don't's, as he relayed them to Kay, were more applicable to an errant child than a grown woman capable of making joint decisions with her spouse.

Oxytocin Says: Get Married!

I was still in the in love phase of our relationship, when logic and reason were thoroughly overwhelmed by fluffy, romantic ideas of happy-ever-afters and the notion that everything would change for the better after that verbal fairy dust, "I now pronounce you man and wife."

I didn't know about the biology of in love back then. I didn't realize that an headily addictive chemical called oxytocin was being secreted from the same part of the brain responsible for heroin addiction and alcohol abuse, blinding me to my would-be husband's fatal character flaws. Oxytocin is what makes total strangers want to throw themselves in front of a bus for each other. It's the substance that causes physical and emotional pain whenever a new pair of lovebirds are apart. High levels of oxytocin, which last anywhere from six months to two years, are a very necessary to ensure pair-bonding and the perpetuation of the species. The problem is, in some cases, you don't really really know -- or even particularly care -- who you pair-bond to, as long as they trigger that sense of longing and need.

Oxytocin is 100 percent romance and impracticality, and it's no judge of character. As biological anthropologist Helen Fisher points out, in love is an addiction -- not an emotion. The in love high is always going to wear off.

Going Against Advice

By the time the wedding rolled around, I knew that Kay was right. Deep down, I knew it. My fiance had become increasingly controlling, and we'd since had serious altercations that left me with the gut feeling that this man I was about to marry didn't love me -- although he loved the idea of having a wife who would fit in with his socio-economic and career status.

So I didn't take Kay's wedding advice. Despite the fact that I looked down the road and couldn't picture a long life with the man who was to shortly be my husband, I went through with the wedding anyway. The pressure was enormous; there had already been engagement parties and other festive soirees held in our honor. The wedding itself was at a chic historic hotel. The flowers were ordered, the custom-made wedding dress fit perfectly, the out-of-town relatives had circled the date.

And I understood why the "Runaway Bride" ran.

Advice Taken ... Just Too Late

There's the wedding, and then there's marriage, which is another animal entirely. Situated in a house thousands of miles away from family and friends, I asked my new husband, "What would you do if I were terminally ill and only had a few months to live?"

There are one or two acceptable responses to this question. "What would you want?" is one of them. "I would honor your wishes" is another. Instead, my husband said, "I'd put you in a very nice nursing home." Where? "Wherever I happen to be working at the time." He assured me that he'd make sure that the facility had a good reputation and skilled staff.

After that, things began to slowly shatter as I realized the advice that Kay was trying to impart. My new husband always made sure that I knew I was under his roof, drafting stringent rules as to what I could and could not do. The laundry was to be folded in a very specific way. Tables had to be kept clear of books, magazines and mail at all times. The rules became more and more absurd and arbitrary; I was required to give him a receipt for every purchase I made over fifty cents. I was to sign a written agreement to limit my television watching time to two hours a week and agree to it for the rest of my life.

I could never see my parents again.

After this last proclamation, I became scared. As I surveyed a stack of shirts that could have doubled as a Gap display and peered into the pantry, with its various cans organized by type, labels neatly facing out (another rule), I realized that my life had become a mis-en-scene from Sleeping with the Enemy. I secretly planned various ways of escape. Kay was probably the only one who completely understood when I packed two suitcases -- the maximum the airline would allow -- and left all of my worldly belongings to come back home and start a new life on my own.

My Wedding Advice to You

It's easy to fall in love and dream about how well your future spouse is most definitely going to treat you. But don't dream. Children dream, teenagers dream and fools dream -- the latter being my excuse. Wait until you really know the person you think you love; wait until you see his or her true character emerge. If you get butterflies in your stomach whenever you think about them or if you can't stand the idea of being apart, it might be too soon for you to use good judgment. Because after that feeling goes away, you're stuck with who you picked and hitched. Although it may not seem true, it is a lot easier to say, "I've changed my mind" and call off the big day than it is to get a divorce and start all over again.

The best husband in the world might not take home an impressive career or big paycheck. The best husband might not be Russell Crowe-handsome, or have a GQ body, or be good in bed, or be the type of man other women secretly covet as their own. That accurately describes the man I once married, if you were to put it on paper, as I am now. The best husband comes from deep inside his heart, and he'll always do what's best not just for me -- but for us.

I've since fallen in love, but I took a big step back when I felt reason tapping on my shoulder. I've never made another mistake as big as marrying Mr. All Wrong. Oxytocin won't get me again. See, I still remember Kay's advice, and I see through her eyes how I deserve to be treated -- how we all do. I don't think she knows how much her honesty meant to me, both then and now. I only wish I'd taken her advice much sooner.