Today I Met The Boy I'm Gonna Marry...
12:24 PM Posted In Marriage Edit This 1 Comment »
I'm not married. I'm not engaged. Heck, I'm not even dating anyone. Just wanted to share that. Stay with me, this is going somewhere.
I've been thinking about marriage lately. Not the typical girl's fairy tale, Prince Charming, happily ever after thoughts. I'd like to think it's a little more fundamental & unique than that. Being a 22 year old college student I've seen my fair share of dating relationships, engagements & weddings. Fact: the three girls I lived with my sophomore year at UK are all engaged or married. That house had a 75% relationship success rate. Just call me the outlier. :) It's been an interesting & humbling experience to be on the spectator side of the dating game, but it has also radically altered my thoughts & ideas.
Recently I've noticed some comments I would have previously ignored. It's an awkward situation because I never noticed it before, mostly because I haven't had married friends until now. Hopefully no one takes offense to my observations. That being said - - story time!
A few months ago I attended a friend's bachelorette party. It was a fun day of swimming, laughing, eating & relaxing in Kentucky. Before the fun started all the girls met at my house to change & caravan to a local pool. Of about 10 girls in attendance all but 2 (yours truly being 1/2 that equation) were engaged or married. While we waited for everyone to arrive we all started talking. Quickly the conversations turned to husbands and fiancees and the comments shared were sad & shocking.
These Christian girls - all twenty-somethings - talked about their husbands like sitcom wives. All the usual jokes were employed, how to "train" a man, what to expect when he's "away from his parents for the first time" and so on. Listening to these girls denigrate their husbands was literally nauseating. I had to leave the room. These girls stood around for nearly an hour talking about mistakes their husbands make daily. True story: "I was cleaning the kitchen floor & had moved the stools into the living room. I left to get ready & when I came back the stools were still where I had left them. I was so furious! Can't he do anything on his own?" Wow. So let met get this straight. You moved chairs, left the room, and your husband didn't read your mind & know you wanted them moved back? What a jerk. He's got a lot of nerve, this one.
I can honestly say if the male counterparts had been present the conversation would not have occurred, which is an important indicator. Husbands were painted as incompetent, helpless & almost burdensome.
Take into consideration, this is a single girl's perspective. The grass is always greener on the other side, you always want what you can't have, blah blah blah. I don't care if I'm single or not - these girls are ignoring common sense. Marriage aside, these men are people. How does standing around complaining about them like they're some parasite help?
I heard another group of girls recently talking about "deal breakers" for relationships. Not an uncommon conversation to have, but this one took an unexpected twist. After "deal breakers" were brought up, one of the girls at the table said that anything else that is undesirable about men can be "changed". Her point was there are some things you should require for a husband, but if all the requirements aren't met you can demand the most important qualities & mold a man to fit the rest. Again, maybe this isn't unheard of, but I just kept flip-flopping the situation. If I were married and found out that my husband was telling his friends that I "met enough requirements" and that he was just planning on changing me to meet the rest I would be heartbroken. I know couples aren't entirely perfect for one another - in any relationship there will be compromises, but if you feel the need to find someone to "change" to make yourself happy I think the problems start with you.
I've been thinking about marriage lately. Not the typical girl's fairy tale, Prince Charming, happily ever after thoughts. I'd like to think it's a little more fundamental & unique than that. Being a 22 year old college student I've seen my fair share of dating relationships, engagements & weddings. Fact: the three girls I lived with my sophomore year at UK are all engaged or married. That house had a 75% relationship success rate. Just call me the outlier. :) It's been an interesting & humbling experience to be on the spectator side of the dating game, but it has also radically altered my thoughts & ideas.
Recently I've noticed some comments I would have previously ignored. It's an awkward situation because I never noticed it before, mostly because I haven't had married friends until now. Hopefully no one takes offense to my observations. That being said - - story time!
A few months ago I attended a friend's bachelorette party. It was a fun day of swimming, laughing, eating & relaxing in Kentucky. Before the fun started all the girls met at my house to change & caravan to a local pool. Of about 10 girls in attendance all but 2 (yours truly being 1/2 that equation) were engaged or married. While we waited for everyone to arrive we all started talking. Quickly the conversations turned to husbands and fiancees and the comments shared were sad & shocking.
These Christian girls - all twenty-somethings - talked about their husbands like sitcom wives. All the usual jokes were employed, how to "train" a man, what to expect when he's "away from his parents for the first time" and so on. Listening to these girls denigrate their husbands was literally nauseating. I had to leave the room. These girls stood around for nearly an hour talking about mistakes their husbands make daily. True story: "I was cleaning the kitchen floor & had moved the stools into the living room. I left to get ready & when I came back the stools were still where I had left them. I was so furious! Can't he do anything on his own?" Wow. So let met get this straight. You moved chairs, left the room, and your husband didn't read your mind & know you wanted them moved back? What a jerk. He's got a lot of nerve, this one.
I can honestly say if the male counterparts had been present the conversation would not have occurred, which is an important indicator. Husbands were painted as incompetent, helpless & almost burdensome.
Take into consideration, this is a single girl's perspective. The grass is always greener on the other side, you always want what you can't have, blah blah blah. I don't care if I'm single or not - these girls are ignoring common sense. Marriage aside, these men are people. How does standing around complaining about them like they're some parasite help?
I heard another group of girls recently talking about "deal breakers" for relationships. Not an uncommon conversation to have, but this one took an unexpected twist. After "deal breakers" were brought up, one of the girls at the table said that anything else that is undesirable about men can be "changed". Her point was there are some things you should require for a husband, but if all the requirements aren't met you can demand the most important qualities & mold a man to fit the rest. Again, maybe this isn't unheard of, but I just kept flip-flopping the situation. If I were married and found out that my husband was telling his friends that I "met enough requirements" and that he was just planning on changing me to meet the rest I would be heartbroken. I know couples aren't entirely perfect for one another - in any relationship there will be compromises, but if you feel the need to find someone to "change" to make yourself happy I think the problems start with you.
1 comments:
Go Laura!
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