You Aren’t Given a Great Marriage

On your wedding day, almost everything you feel about your relationship is absolutely amazing. That’s why you are getting married! It’d be silly to think that once you say “I do” that everything starts over. You already have a great relationship, which means you will have a great marriage!

…..Wrong.

You don’t start with a great marriage. You start with a marriage.

Every single couple that gets married doesn’t start with a great marriage. You don’t even start with a good one!

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been together, what faith you are, how old you are, none of it. You start with a marriage.

When Brendan and I went through pre-marital counseling, this was one of the lessons taught. Every day the host of the class would say, “Remember, no one is given a good marriage, you are only given a marriage.”

Those words stuck with me. “Everyone is given a marriage”

And at first, I thought well, of course it’s good when you get married, why wouldn’t it be? If it doesn’t start off well then things might not be so great for you guys.

After getting married, I then realized the truth behind this statement.

“No one is given a good marriage, everyone is given a marriage.”

There is this thought that when you get married your relationship is greatest that it will ever be on your wedding day. And it basically goes all downhill from there. I think I used to believe that too. And then when you’re both 73 all you do is fight, bicker like you always have and just deal with it.

Why would you get married if the greatest it will ever be is the DAY you get married?

I mean seriously, do you think your relationship with your spouse, right now, is as good as it will ever get? Why do you think that?

GUYS!

Let me give you a little clue. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither is your marriage.

Okay, I tried to look up how long it took to build Rome and there were about a 1,000 different answers. We’ll just sum it up as a long freagin time. But, you get the gist.

The day you get married, despite how long you have been together, you start back at zero. But make no mistake, this is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing.

Why is starting at zero a good thing? Because this allows you to start at the ground level to build a foundation. A solid foundation that will hold many storms, windy nights, rain, maybe a hurricane, and a broken window or two from hail.

If you don’t have a strong foundation to hold, sorry, but you might get swept up in the storm.

Marriage is not easy. Sometimes I think we go into it thinking it will be the greatest thing in the world. When in reality it is one of the toughest things in the world.

You get to live with this person for the rest of your life. All of their habits, hopes, dreams, debt, family, children, dogs, everything that is theirs. It doesn’t sound easy because it isn’t. It should honestly scare you a little bit but in a good way. However, that is a topic for a different time.

Do you want to get married? Great, prepare yourself for it.

Do you want to have a good or even great marriage after your wedding day? Wonderful! Start at the ground level and build a foundation.

Realize that the person you just married has flaws, and not just “He leaves the toilet seat up” flaws. I mean real, raw, and emotional flaws. But guess what? So you do.

Some of them you both won’t know you even have until after you get married. Trust me, things come out.

I want everyone to come into their marriage knowing that it will be hard, knowing they are two broken people, coming together to build something amazing. Knowing that it is possible to have a great marriage, but that they understand they aren’t given a great marriage.

They are given a marriage.

I hope this encourages you today to build a strong foundation with your spouse.

Thanks for reading!

~Erin, The Short Wife