“It takes work to make a marriage work.”
“Always respect women, even the dumb ugly ones.”
“Never point a loaded pistol at your face.”
Those are just three unrelated quotes my dad said and/or taught me. He didn’t always practice what he preached, like that third one, but I think he always respected women, but I was pretty young and all girls were dumb and ugly when I was a kid. But he also said, “All women are pretty, just some are prettier than others.” As a kid you looked up to your dad. You trusted, believed, respected, and followed. But as I got older, I started to consider the source. I questioned where he might have learned what he taught. I learned newer truths based on my own experience. I became my own person and now I’m responsible for the “truths” I’m telling my children.
But this post is really about my dad’s notion of it taking work to make a marriage work. Gwen and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary next week. I don’t remember either one of us saying that it was hard work to get here. We could acknowledge it out loud to family and friends;
“Hey, look at us, we made it to 15 years, sure hope there’s at least another few in this run.”
That just sounds ridiculous to me. It’s not an accomplishment. It’s not like we wake up on this day every year and say, “Phew, made it one more year, let’s look at our plan for the next 365 days and make sure our action items line up with our deliverables.” Marriage should be easy and anything that is considered “work” in a marriage should be fun, or we’re not doing it right.
So here we are, on our 15th wedding anniversary, and I’m trying not to draw attention to that fact by writing about it on my blog and then posting it on my two Facebook pages. That’s hypocritical, for sure. But I’m going to replace the word “work” with the word “fun” in my dad’s first quote, so that it reads:
“It takes fun to make a marriage fun.”
I think that’s the truth I’ll pass to my kids. That and I won’t call women dumb and/or ugly when they’re within earshot. And with respect to that third one of his,… well, that’s a no-brainer.
Seriously, I’m laughing out loud at that last joke--- Come on, that was funny. Ok, so let’s wrap this up because I’m already tired of myself, can’t imagine what you’re thinking if you’re still reading…
Gwen said something to me a year after we started dating, which was about 17 years ago, that I thought was just a cute girl saying cute things:
“…I’ll always feel this way. It’s not going to--- what’d you call it? The newness is going to wear off? Oh that’s silly, I’ll always feel like this, it will always feel like we just started dating. ”
She’s still right. Run and tell that! So here’s to you Gwen, I toast to you and us and our kids and our family and friends. If you’re not busy next Friday, will you go out with me?
