Marriage Philosophy

Today I wanted to share our philosophy behind marriage. We have two sayings in our house, the first is "Marriage doesn't have to suck" and the second is, "It's you and me against the world."

We were married young. My wife had just turned 21 and I was much, much older at 22. We were both still in college. When we told our professors, friends, and parents, while most were generally supportive, there were still a number of detractors. The biggest reason for being against it was that we were too young - we hadn't "seen enough of the world yet." A lot of them mentioned that we should wait and "go travel Europe" or that we had "plenty of time to be married and should enjoy the single life."

If you view your spouse as a "ball and chain" or that marriage is a trap that sucks the life out of you, then what they said makes a lot of sense. But marriage doesn't have to suck. When you marry your best friend, and you remain committed to maintaining that friendship, marriage is awesome. I didn't want to go travel Europe by myself, I wanted to get married and bring my best friend along. It all comes down to perspective. Marriage can be a lot of things, but it doesn't have to suck.

The other saying, comes out a lot during our arguments. When you live in close quarters with another person, conflict is bound to arise, never mind the incredibly difficult process of uniting two different personalities. In the heat of things, it's easy to make the other person out to be the bad guy. But when we take a step back and remind each other that we are on the same team, that when everyone else is against us, we have committed to being partners and we are committed to supporting each other no matter what, when we remember that, our fights become resolvable differences, rather than battles to the death.

"You and me against the world" also comes into play when one of us is about to set off on something new. As a single person, you say, "I'm going to tackle this new thing." But as a married couple, we can say, "I'm right here with you, supporting you emotionally, physically, financially, or however else you need it. Even if everything else is going against you, I'm standing with you." You and me against the world reminds us that we are a team in every aspect of life.