That time of month...

Conflict and compromise in marriage

As I was putting together yesterday's list of reasons to not get married, I really wanted to talk more about compromise. So for today's Wednesday's Wedded Bliss post, we are going to talk about compromise.

As I mentioned before, compromise is a big part of marriage. Taking two people and joining them together is no easy task. It is especially difficult if neither is willing to do any give and take. What my wife and have found to be helpful is a simple way to figure out how important something is to us and then make compromises from there.

While I didn't come up with this compromise system, I am more than happy to take credit for it. Prepare to have your mind blown by how easy it is. First, both you and your spouse need to be able to count to ten. If you can't do that, you need to have ten fingers. If you don't have ten fingers, you may borrow some toes. If you still can't get to ten, find a different system. Next, you need a decision or conflict. There should be no shortage of decisions to make. Finally, you need a smidgen of honesty. Nobody likes a liar. With these pieces in play, you can compromise a little easier.

Let's take this made up conflict of where to hang a painting. I want to hang the painting in the living room because I think it's a neat piece of art and my wife hates the painting and wants to burn it in a fire. So we rationally talk it out. I rate on a scale of 1-10 how important it is to me to have the painting in the living room. A ten would mean that this is the most important thing in my life right now, and a 1 indicates that I'm so apathetic to this matter I'd almost rather watch paint dry while having my nose hairs plucked. In this case it's a four for me. My wife on the other hand says it's a niner. Yes, a niner. This is a big deal to her. This is almost as important as that time I tried to name our son Rufus. Almost.

Now here's where it gets tricky. Not really, I'm just kidding. I already told you this would be super easy. The next step is to just compare the two numbers: 9 is higher than 4. This is obviously very important to her. While to me, I want this to happen, but it's not a nine, not even close. My day won't be ruined if this doesn't happen. So we take the painting, dowse it in gasoline, and set it on fire.

What if we had both said 4? Then you flip a coin or something else easy. Neither one really cares a whole lot about the decision.

What if we had both said 9? Then it gets interesting. When that happens, you break out the dueling canes, first to draw blood gets their way. Seriously. This is the only way to resolve this type of high stakes issue. Make sure to wear goggles so you don't lose an eye.

The nice thing about the rating method is it allows both people to see where the other person is at. Sometimes I would push to get my way, even though it was a 4 for me, because I didn't realize how important the issue was to my wife. But when I know that this is something really important to her then I can better adjust my priorities. It's not a perfect system, but it has helped us out countless times.

Tuesday List: 8 reasons not to get married

While we have only been married for almost 6 years, we think marriage is awesome and we highly recommend it, with just a few caveats. So here they are, 8 reasons to not get married. Oh and kids, this one is a little more PG-13 than usual. Ask your parents if you can keep reading.

1) You aren't in it for life - part of the reason marriage has power is because it's a lifelong commitment. Part of the traditional wedding vows include the phrase "as long as we both shall live." You are telling people publicly that you want to be together forever. If you are only in it for a couple of years or even if you go in thinking, "I'm in as long as it's fun" then don't get married. If you are even thinking "I'm going to work really hard at this and gives it a chance." Marriage isn't for you. Marriage is a lifestyle that you jump into with both feet and submerse yourself in. A marriage built on doubt, with a foundation of fear - fear that at some point you or your spouse is going to mess up so bad that it will all be over, is not a healthy relationship. It must be built on trust - trust that you are both in it for life.

2) You aren't friends - when you are married, you are committing share life with another person. If you two don't get along, getting married is going to trap you in an awful situation. While getting married is awesome, getting married to someone you don't enjoy spending time with is awful. Don't do it.

3) You are already living together - for this group of people, marriage is just a formality. Is the reason you were living together first because you wanted to try the other person out, to make sure you could handle being with them? Now that you know the answer, what does a marriage certificate change? Are you more committed now that you have lived together? Were you seeing if you were "sexually compatible?" Anatomically, if one of you has boy parts and the other has girl parts, you are physically compatible for marriage. But maybe you wanted to make sure the other person had the same sex drive you did. From a physiology standpoint, that's baloney (bologna?) As you go through life, both you and your partner will have different drives in response to so many things; stress, hormones, and life events will all drastically influence that drive. It will not remain a constant thing. If you live together before marriage, just keep doing what you're doing - you don't need marriage.

4) You aren't willing to make compromises. There isn't much to expound upon with this one. If you want to take two people and join them into one, new unit, then there must be some give and take.

5) You aren't willing to grow up - there are two aspects to this one. First, and this is usually an issue for the guys, you aren't willing to leave your mommy and make your wife your number one priority. When you marry, you commit to prioritize your spouse over your parents. Guys, this means that when your mom criticizes your wife, you must stand up for her. When your mom, tells you what to do and it contradicts what you and your wife have already decided on, you must say, "thanks for the input Mom, but we have already made a decision." It's not easy to do, but if you can't do it, then don't get married. The second part of this is that you must accept responsibility. Playing video games every day for 12 hours instead of working is no longer an option. (People who bash on video games are a pet peeve of mine. I am not bashing video games. Anything that reflects a lazy or entitled attitude can be the culprit - from working out 12 hours a day to the neglect of your family, to reading, to playing chess. All these things have their place, but once they become a priority over your spouse, they reflect a lack of maturity). Once you decide to become married, you commit to making your relationship with your spouse a priority. Spending excessive time doing anything else indicates your priorities are focused elsewhere, and you probably aren't ready to be married.

6) You don't share the same religion. This is especially true for Christians. Marrying someone with the intent to convert them is a bad idea and the Bible says don't do it.

7) You think marriage is going to be easy. Marriage is awesome, and it's a lot of fun, but it can be hard work some times. The problems you have before marriage are not automatically cured by a band of gold and some diamonds. You have to be ready to confront some difficult issues and struggle through them. It isn't always that way, but marriage is just like everything else in life - if you want it to be good, it takes work.

8) You or your mate is a zombie - this will not work. Marriage with the undead is just wrong if not downright illegal. Necrophilia (do not google) is just sick.

Comments are appreciated, but if you must use adult language, email my lawyers at mmm.lawteam@gmail.com. Your vitriol is always welcome in their inbox.

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.

Mood rings

Whoah there. Are you still living at home? Is there any possibility that someone might wash your mouth with soap if you swear? Then please, don't repeat any of the words found in the following picture. I don't condone the use of swearing, but sometimes a picture is just too funny to pass up. Proceed with caution...

Wednesday's Wedded Bliss

I did a little brain storming with my wife yesterday to come up with content for Wednesday's "Wedded Bliss" series. I think we've got some good stuff coming up for the next couple of weeks. The plan is to make it applicable to people who are dating too, but sometimes it just won't be. Sorry. The other good news is that my wife has agreed to throw in her two cents every now and then. So for those of you who are sick of me, there is hope.

To begin, I wanted to define marriage and how we approach it and will continue to approach it in this blog. Marriage, to us, is a commitment between a man and a woman, for life, in which both agree to leave their old lives behind and commit to becoming a new, unified creation. I am not addressing any gay/lesbian rights in this post, nor am I trying to make any judgement calls. This is simply our approach to marriage and where we will start from when we talk about marriage.

We use the term "leave and cleave" a lot in our house. It is used to indicate that we are leaving our old lives behind, we are leaving the care of our parents, we are leaving our "single" desires behind, and we are committing to being joined to each other. We are committing to developing a unified sense of purpose, creating a new family, and pursuing a life together. Whereas, before marriage, we were two people on parallel roads, we are now two people whose paths have merged and are now traveling the same road, hand in hand.

Life is better when you have someone to share it with.