An Enigmatic Alliance 2/25/2024

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Some friends of ours have two twenty-something children, both of whom have recently gotten engaged.  It came as quite a surprise when their daughter asked if she could come and talk with myself and husband and get to know us better. Now, I am not remotely conceited enough to think that they are coming to us for some sage advice on how to have the ideal marriage. Even if they were, the level of just how sadly mistaken they are going to be is something I daresay I am incapable of adequately expressing here. We don’t know them all that well but we do know their parents pretty well so perhaps they do want to get to know us better. Let us all hope that is what it is, because again, we may have been married a little over a decade but I’m pretty sure we’re still winging it and at the very best learning as we go. Their request for a meeting, which has turned into a dinner because 1) we’re feeders, 2) we love to cook and 3) we’re Southern, has definitely gotten me to thinking about marriage. I’m remembering before it, when it was new and the things I’m still discovering today.

My first thoughts are to quickly jot down tips that I think might be beneficial for young people about to embark on the journey of a lifetime.  At first, I was worried that I hadn’t really learned anything, and I was going to be utterly useless. If I’m honest, what helped me come up with anything at all was to try to remember the things my husband and I have argued about. I felt relatively certain that there were lessons to be learned after a good old-fashioned knock-down drag out. Disclaimer:  No knocking down or dragging out was actually done in our arguments. I will not say that neither of us might have enjoyed such activities but that was not part of the initial agreement when we married so we have controlled ourselves thus far.  And as I write all that I am desperately hoping that the sarcasm translates, and you don’t think that my husband and myself are constantly inches away from murder and/or all form of raging violence.

Probably one of the best things that I have probably learned from my years of marriage is to never, ever, no matter how blatantly obvious things may seem, never, ever assume that your spouse knows something you are implying.  If you have not blatantly, obviously, clearly and definitely expressed your wants, desires, needs, thoughts to your spouse, do not, and I cannot stress this enough, do not assume that they understand said things. It is a mysterious thing how one can be so utterly and completely positive that their spouse understands them whether it be a displeasure expressed or a need presented and yet, they could not possibly be more agonizingly wrong.  I have had more times than I can count where I was sure I had clearly communicated my thoughts and my husband could not possibly be more oblivious to said thoughts than if I had spoken them in Cantonese. In case that metaphor was unclear, he speaks Cantonese about as much as a shark enjoys a leafy salad.

They say men are from Mars and women are from Venus. This seems silly until you see blaring examples of just how amazingly different the two sexes are.  We could not possibly think of things in a more diametrically opposed manner.  At times it doesn’t even make the slightest bit of sense as to how two people can be in the same situation and draw such different analyses from things. I could tell you terribly sordid tales of dire miscommunication. And when I say miscommunication, I mean to the point of one person saying, “I’m hungry” and the other saying, “Why yes, we do need an oil change.”  The male and female brain function that differently.

I think if you can embrace the differences and understand just how vast they can be then you have already won half the battle. If you can come into things knowing you think very differently from your spouse, as far as I am concerned you already have a leg up on whatever challenges you may face.  I think it’s an ounce of prevention that’s worth a pound of cure if you are prepared that the workings of your significant other’s mind are going to be an enigma most of the time and they are going to be thinking the same thing.  The two of  you are going to disagree. That much is inevitable because you’re not the same person.  It’s the handling of the differentness that probably is the biggest strength.  Some disagreements will be dealing with a yippy little chihuahua; more annoying than anything.  There will be the ones where the dog in the fight will be something akin to an angry German Sheperd and everything must be delicately approached and dealt with. Then there will be those arguments that are somewhere in the middle with a hound being loud for no reason and everyone is confused and just wishes the noise would hush.

Overall, in reviewing my decade or so, marriage is well…something else.  It can be happy and warm because it will be times with your best friend.  There will be times that will be the opposite of that, and best friend will be the absolute farthest description applicable.  But that is how love works though.  It isn’t an eternally fuzzy feeling.  It’s a conscious decision to choose every day to want what is best for the other person. It’s beautiful and hard and tiresome and wonderful.  It’s a challenge.  And it’s so worth it.