Preparations were all in place. The month prior to the weeding, we'd got a lease on a one bedroom apartment in Tulsa. We got some furniture moved in so we had a place to sit and a place to sleep. I'd been living there since we'd gotten the apartment, so I was acclimated to the environment a little bit anyway. Not that it still didn't take a little while to get used to all the noise in an apartment complex anyway.
For my part of the wedding, I had the male role of "stay out of the way," so I don't really have any fascinating stories of the preparations or much of anything because I did my job so well. We had a couple of showers that I was able to attend: one held by my parents' church and another held by the Queen's family. She had her own personal shower where she got a myriad of pretty little things I've seen her in now and then.
She did have me make a couple of mix tapes for the reception (that we didn't use) as well as one for the pre-wedding music (that we hardly used), but that was my big responsibility: the music. Apparently she fell for the impressive size of my collection. It's pretty big.
Some might say I had the most boring bachelor party in the world, but you know, everyone has a party that's for them, and mine worked perfectly for me. We stayed up all night watching bad movies and then played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, and let me tell you, when getting a question right gets you another turn, playing that game with the people I played with made for some very, very, very long turns. Anyone who knows Star Wars well enough to know what an Ugnaught is is bound to know the basic stuff inside-out.
The Queen indicated that she thought it was incredibly boring, and even though Darth Vader did bring beer, no one ended up drinking it. Welcome to Geek Central. Now, he should have brought Mountain Dew or Bawls or something else caffeinated. THAT would have been completely finished off.
I took off the day before the wedding as well as the week after. The day before the ceremony, we set up the church and did a rehearsal so we all knew what was going on. I remember it being very exciting that it was actually going to happen, but even that close, it still seemed like something we were only toying with, maybe because it wasn't REALLY happening during the rehearsal.
That night, we had the rehearsal dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse in Tulsa, which is a pretty good Italian restaurant in the downtown area that had a room large enough to hold EVERYONE. It makes for one of the very, very few times that both families have been together, and other than the wedding (and the birth of three little girls for which most turned out), I don't believe it has happened since.
The day of the wedding I was actually scared to death that I would oversleep even thought the wedding was scheduled for 2 in the afternoon. Fortunately, I never oversleep for things I'm excited about, so I was up in plenty of time to shower, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and...well, I'm the guy, that's about it for me. Oh yeah, I shaved. Ta-da!
I heard the Queen got up about 2 or 3 hours before I did to start getting ready, but women take a lot of time to get themselves ready. Now, the Queen starts with a hot palette to begin with, so the more time she spends on herself, the more the boys go gaga over her because she just keeps looking better, so the fact that she spend all morning getting ready made her the brightest star in the building, which is naturally appropriate since she was the star of the show.
I got to the church at 11, which is when I was told to be there to ensure everything was completely ready...or rather, that I and my guys were completely ready. We ended up changing in the choir room, which was an odd choice for a changing room, since there is a glass door to the outside. Anyone who chose to be on the backside of the building would have gotten a brief, yet boring, show of a few guys changing.
After the change, we were waiting around....and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Well, I found my way to the drum set and announced my new song..."Baby." Now this was a joke I'd made up some months before, but I'd never found my way to an actual drum set to play it. The gist of it is that I played a basic R&B beat on the set, and every 4 bars I would sing out "Baby..." Repeat ad nauseum.
It wasn't too long before someone showed up in the doorway and said we were being too loud. Oh well. So I moved over to the piano, and started in on a simple rock beat and chord progression that I made up as I went along. Farmer, who was one of my groomsmen, tooled around on the organ after I told him the progression I was playing. Engineer played quietly on the drums for awhile. It was fun.
Then it was time. We got off the instruments and got our game faces on. We went out and stood by the minister to watch the girls come in one by one. The Engineer was my best man, with Farmer and Darth Vader as the other two groomsmen. In reverse order, my sister, who I've discovered hasn't been named yet so I'll call her Vaughn (it's a thing with her, and God bless her, she is a geek), came in first because she was 12 at the time, and Darth Vader is short. She was followed by The Queen's friend for years who does CG special effects for movies (you've seen her work in the first Harry Potter movie, Star Wars II, Stuart Little, and the list goes on and on), and finally the Queen's best friend since college who was the maid of honor.
Finally, the Queen came in with her father shining bright as the sun and lighting up the whole room. This was when it all became very exciting because until that time, it wasn't REALLY happening. Now she was here in that dress looking so beautiful, and I knew it was really going down right then. Her father gave her away, and I walked down to take to the pastor to conduct the ceremony.
Emotions ran very, very high on the ceremony. Everyone said they did all right until The Engineer lost it and started sniffling through the whole ceremony. I could hear him behind me, but the poor girls had to watch him. You have to understand that he and I are only 18 months in age, so for all intents and purposes, we grew up like twins. When I got married, and for the first time, I was really leaving home, it meant he was actually on his own. Well, not really. We remain very, very close and see him a couple times a week.
The excitement, though, was incredible. I was very happy to have the Queen as my wife (a term that took a little time to get used to), and I've never regretted it. We were announced and it was done. Time to go to the reception...well, no, that was everyone else. We had pictures to do.
So we got pictures of us, the parents, each section of the family, the wedding party, and while it took a little while, we were still high on the moment, so it really didn't matter.
We went to the reception and greeted everyone as they passed on their congratulations. We took a little bit of time to cut the cake, which was awesome. It was white with Italian creme and tasted like a dream from (I believe it is (or was) called) Anne's Bakery -- the Queen will undoubtedly correct if I'm wrong.
Then I learned something about being the groom at a reception. You see, one reason going to weddings is cool is all the food they serve as well as the incomparable cake. I knew about the food that was going to be there, and I was very much looking forward to eating some of it. Well, as the groom of the wedding, sitting down is not an option. There were so many people there that our task was move among them and be the guests of honor that we were. Obviously, I have no problem being the center of attention, but part of me was bummed that I didn't get to chill much there and nibble a bit. All right, I did nibble as we walked about, but I didn't get a plate.
The Queen said I could have with no problem, but to me, it seemed to be rather odd to have done so to be walking about with a plate talking to everyone with a mouth full of food.
Before we knew it, it was time to go. Everything moved like a whirlwind since the ceremony began from getting up in the morning to the playing with my buddies to the ceremony, the reception and now, onward to some quiet time. We went into a room away from everyone and changed into our traveling clothes. The Queen had a suitcase she was going to take on the honeymoon to put in my car, which we were taking to Colorado to spend a week.
My car had been tagged by the over-zealous party guests, so we drove off to stay the night at a local Day's Inn. Everyone else was going to help clean up and take whatever gifts we had gotten to our apartment. But it was over. We had done it. We were married, and the happiest pair of campers in town.
So we got to the Day's Inn, and (I'll be honest) completely passed out. Who knew the day was so hard on both of us, but we were both dead tired. We woke up a few hours later and finally ate a meal. Neither of us had had anything that entire day but a little cake, and whatever snacks I swiped from the tables at the reception.
But the rest of the night is none of anyone else's business.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Slightly Psychopathic
So there was no post yesterday, but I was dealing with money stress for the better part of the day that I did manage to resolve by the end. However, it bogged my head down for most of the day, and I was somewhat anti-social as a result (not that I get a lot of attention at work, which helps).
Now, while I was at work, I learned a nifty little trick about Guitar Hero, so I was eager to try it later. I tried it and it worked, but it'll take a ton of practice to get DragonForce up to speed. So I decided to play another song: The Knights of Cydonia on Hard. I practiced a couple of sections and was satisfied with how I was doing on it. Trouble is, to reach these most difficult sections, you have to play through most of the 5-minute song, and doing 4 minutes only to crash on the fifth is frustrating. I went back and forth to practice and try again, and I kept failing out the song.
Ok, when I get frustrated, I get very quiet. Reason for this is the anger wells up in my head, and I shut down to control it or else we'd be short one guitar controller (though the gods of rock would smile upon me). When I shut down, the Queen doesn't know how to react to me, since my reactions have often been unpredictable when I hit that mode. I'm a lot better at controlling my frustration than I used to be, but she finds it to be far better when I'm frustrated to leave me alone until I cool off.
Time was, I had a very violent temper to the point where I would throw things, but as I've grown older, I've learned to control it to such a severe extent that I suspect that control is one reason I come off as largely emotionless. I actually have some pretty radical emotions that can be extreme at times, but I keep them bottled up. Yeah, Spock is my hero.
I watched Taking Lives recently, and at one point the profiler stated that normal people react to the mention and evidence of violent acts where psychopaths are detached from them, viewing those evidences as just something else in the world. It makes me wonder how close to the edge I am since internally, I react, but externally, I show nothing in most cases. I believe the Queen is now scared. Love you, honey!
For Easter, the princesses each got a new Webkinz turtle. Their main excitement there is registering them on the Webkinz site so they can setup rooms for them, and name them, and of course, all those online games. Well, Sassy Pants wanted to call hers Shelly. The site denied the name's use. Know why?
Get a load of this: the name was not allowed to be used because...it contains the word "hell." yeah, that means they've got some logic set up to exclude foul language from within the names selected. While I grant this is for obvious reasons -- I mean, you don't want some creative compound names coming up -- it also means that the have an animal with a shell and no way of using the word shell in the name (like at 75% of the children will try to do). What will they do if a Shitzu comes out (ok, so it can be spelled shiatsu, but where's the fun in that?)? Or Hello Kitty? I'm sure profane words appear in several other common words (that I can't think of). While it may inspire creativity, I suppose +h3r3 @r3 \/\/@y$ @r0vl\ld 1+.
To end this post, this morning I came into work as usual and a short while later, Optimus Prime arrived. We were chatting about nothing when someone walked between our cubes and stated, "cake...kitchen." Naturally, we understood exactly what this meant, but I had to remark, "so which of us is cake and which is kitchen?"
She came back by, so we asked. She rolled her eyes as so many people do when we start such nonsense. Optimus figured he would be kitchen because he's the larger of the two of us. I disagreed with this since that would make me the cake boy. While we were speaking of this, she opted to clarify that the cake was in the kitchen.
Well, we paused for a moment and Optimus commented that he didn't much like the implications of that.
Now, while I was at work, I learned a nifty little trick about Guitar Hero, so I was eager to try it later. I tried it and it worked, but it'll take a ton of practice to get DragonForce up to speed. So I decided to play another song: The Knights of Cydonia on Hard. I practiced a couple of sections and was satisfied with how I was doing on it. Trouble is, to reach these most difficult sections, you have to play through most of the 5-minute song, and doing 4 minutes only to crash on the fifth is frustrating. I went back and forth to practice and try again, and I kept failing out the song.
Ok, when I get frustrated, I get very quiet. Reason for this is the anger wells up in my head, and I shut down to control it or else we'd be short one guitar controller (though the gods of rock would smile upon me). When I shut down, the Queen doesn't know how to react to me, since my reactions have often been unpredictable when I hit that mode. I'm a lot better at controlling my frustration than I used to be, but she finds it to be far better when I'm frustrated to leave me alone until I cool off.
Time was, I had a very violent temper to the point where I would throw things, but as I've grown older, I've learned to control it to such a severe extent that I suspect that control is one reason I come off as largely emotionless. I actually have some pretty radical emotions that can be extreme at times, but I keep them bottled up. Yeah, Spock is my hero.
I watched Taking Lives recently, and at one point the profiler stated that normal people react to the mention and evidence of violent acts where psychopaths are detached from them, viewing those evidences as just something else in the world. It makes me wonder how close to the edge I am since internally, I react, but externally, I show nothing in most cases. I believe the Queen is now scared. Love you, honey!
For Easter, the princesses each got a new Webkinz turtle. Their main excitement there is registering them on the Webkinz site so they can setup rooms for them, and name them, and of course, all those online games. Well, Sassy Pants wanted to call hers Shelly. The site denied the name's use. Know why?
Get a load of this: the name was not allowed to be used because...it contains the word "hell." yeah, that means they've got some logic set up to exclude foul language from within the names selected. While I grant this is for obvious reasons -- I mean, you don't want some creative compound names coming up -- it also means that the have an animal with a shell and no way of using the word shell in the name (like at 75% of the children will try to do). What will they do if a Shitzu comes out (ok, so it can be spelled shiatsu, but where's the fun in that?)? Or Hello Kitty? I'm sure profane words appear in several other common words (that I can't think of). While it may inspire creativity, I suppose +h3r3 @r3 \/\/@y$ @r0vl\ld 1+.
To end this post, this morning I came into work as usual and a short while later, Optimus Prime arrived. We were chatting about nothing when someone walked between our cubes and stated, "cake...kitchen." Naturally, we understood exactly what this meant, but I had to remark, "so which of us is cake and which is kitchen?"
She came back by, so we asked. She rolled her eyes as so many people do when we start such nonsense. Optimus figured he would be kitchen because he's the larger of the two of us. I disagreed with this since that would make me the cake boy. While we were speaking of this, she opted to clarify that the cake was in the kitchen.
Well, we paused for a moment and Optimus commented that he didn't much like the implications of that.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Easter Weekend
So this last weekend had a couple of points of interest in it that I do actually remember. Yeah, I sat back long enough and mused enough for my memory to kick in at least a little bit. It's Monday, and I worked all three days at the world's largest retailer, so I'm kind of tired. One point about them though...
I have direct deposit like most of the world, so I don't ever go into personnel to pick up my pay stubs. After all, I know how much I get, so I don't worry about it. Well, they finally decided to mail out the check stubs in an envelope with a 41 cent stamp. Apparently, the world's largest retailer has difficulty weighing envelopes and placing the correct postage as I got a notice from the post office that I owed 17 cents for unpaid postage. There's something wrong with that...especially since if they wanted me to get my check stubs, I would have done it.
Every Saturday, we go out to eat with my brother, The Engineer. This week, we went out to a new place called Copeland's at 71st and 129th in Broken Arrow (if you're close enough). We actually went there because Ted's Escondido Cafe had a long wait...again. We actually end up in all kinds of places because Ted's is always so full. Gotta go eat at 4:00 to even get in in under an hour.
Anyway, while we were there, a waiter popped up and said he thought he recognized us. Turns out we knew him from eating at Compadre's, a Mexican restaurant that took over a long defunct gas station at 101st and 145th. We'd gone there fairly regularly a few years ago when this waiter's wife was pregnant, and I'd left him a larger than normal tip for snacks for the delivery. It's a small world.
As usual, I recognized his face, but had no idea who he was. But...that happens to me a lot. I have people say hey to me all the time (by name at that), and I just waive and say hey in return, but I never have any idea who they or how they know me. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, they'll tell me, but usually, every just keeps walking and I am left clueless.
As for Copeland's, just in case you were wondering, it was a little pricey, but as with so many other things in life, you get what you pay for. This means that the food was excellent and the waitstaff was probably the best I've ever had anywhere -- bar none. Sassy Pants dropped a fork and within moments, the waiter had it snatched up off the floor. He asked if we wanted the kids' food out first. And let me not forget the refills; he kept them coming. It was a very, very positive experience.
Now, we'd eaten a little earlier on Saturday because we wanted to get home so The Engineer could help us with our tree in the backyard that had a lot of broken branches. You see, due to my eye injury, I'm not allowed to deal with heights, so I'm stuck on the ground, despite my love of climbing trees. The Engineer had the chainsaw (with a new chain he'd been holding out on us) tied to a rope so he could drag it up the tree and not worry if he dropped it (which he did once).
The big drama there was when one of the branches came down. Now, I was on the ground observing everything and occasionally grabbing some hanging limbs to pull the branch into my yard, so I saw when the branch came down and the 'Y' of the branch landed on either side of him. When he cut one of the limbs so the branch would go ahead and fall the rest of the way down, some part of it came back and hit him in the face. He received a solid gash on the side of his eyebrow that initially looked like it needed stitches, but we used some medical tape to hold it together since it wasn't bleeding that bad after the initial rush.
Needless to say, he was done. I told him so.
Yesterday was Easter and we had quite the full day. Our pastor has this weird issue with holidays to where he doesn't seem to celebrate them at all. So at church, he continues to preach on whatever topic he left off on the week before. He's a regular scheherezade in this regard as he'll take a sermon with only three points and stretch it out to a month. He'll talk for an hour and comment, "would you believe that was just the introduction? I haven't reached my first point yet." So, we opted to visit another church before our regular service began at 10:30, so I could perform my musical responsibilities.
The other church was large and impersonal. They greeted us, sure, but we were on our own from there. We found our way into the sanctuary where we were largely ignored. We got comments on the princesses, but other than that and a rare handshake, no one eally cared. The service was more like a concert in that it was all very well rehearsed, but about as exciting as a funeral. If the people didn't have to stand, they didn't.
This is in stark contrast to our little church where the music flows very spontaneously, sometimes repeat ad nauseum, and no one sits for about 30-45 minutes worth of straight praise and worship. In comparison to the polished program we witnessed, we're downright raw in the best way possible.
Since we have three princesses, an Easter Egg hunt was imminent. Before church, we had a brief hunt in the house for some hard boiled eggs the Easter Bunny had hidden here and there. After our second service, we headed out to the Queen's maternal grandparents (referred by nearly everyone as Ma and Pa) for some lunch and another Easter Egg hunt, this time with plastic prize eggs that, of course, contained prizes.
Now, if the Queen's father is known for anything, it's his sharp wit. Ma and Pa have an in ground pool in their backyard complete with deck and everything, and this time of year, it is covered, but with the recent rain, there was standing water on top of the cover. Well, the Queen's father wasted no time in telling the princesses that the eggs with the money are at the bottom of the pool. The Queen is always quick to tell them not to go into the pool (not that they would...I hope).
Well, near the end, he mentioned the eggs at the bottom of the pool again, and Darth Vader was quick to reiterate that me, so I acted like I was going to jump in the pool. What did the Queen say? Well, you see, I had the camera and was taking pictures, so I didn't get anything like "don't do it," but instead she said, "not with the camera."
Not to be put aside by the undue care for the camera, I let her know that I was takign the underwater pictures of the egg hunt. It would be the Jacques Cousteau Easter Egg Hunt.
And a good laugh was had by all...
I have direct deposit like most of the world, so I don't ever go into personnel to pick up my pay stubs. After all, I know how much I get, so I don't worry about it. Well, they finally decided to mail out the check stubs in an envelope with a 41 cent stamp. Apparently, the world's largest retailer has difficulty weighing envelopes and placing the correct postage as I got a notice from the post office that I owed 17 cents for unpaid postage. There's something wrong with that...especially since if they wanted me to get my check stubs, I would have done it.
Every Saturday, we go out to eat with my brother, The Engineer. This week, we went out to a new place called Copeland's at 71st and 129th in Broken Arrow (if you're close enough). We actually went there because Ted's Escondido Cafe had a long wait...again. We actually end up in all kinds of places because Ted's is always so full. Gotta go eat at 4:00 to even get in in under an hour.
Anyway, while we were there, a waiter popped up and said he thought he recognized us. Turns out we knew him from eating at Compadre's, a Mexican restaurant that took over a long defunct gas station at 101st and 145th. We'd gone there fairly regularly a few years ago when this waiter's wife was pregnant, and I'd left him a larger than normal tip for snacks for the delivery. It's a small world.
As usual, I recognized his face, but had no idea who he was. But...that happens to me a lot. I have people say hey to me all the time (by name at that), and I just waive and say hey in return, but I never have any idea who they or how they know me. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, they'll tell me, but usually, every just keeps walking and I am left clueless.
As for Copeland's, just in case you were wondering, it was a little pricey, but as with so many other things in life, you get what you pay for. This means that the food was excellent and the waitstaff was probably the best I've ever had anywhere -- bar none. Sassy Pants dropped a fork and within moments, the waiter had it snatched up off the floor. He asked if we wanted the kids' food out first. And let me not forget the refills; he kept them coming. It was a very, very positive experience.
Now, we'd eaten a little earlier on Saturday because we wanted to get home so The Engineer could help us with our tree in the backyard that had a lot of broken branches. You see, due to my eye injury, I'm not allowed to deal with heights, so I'm stuck on the ground, despite my love of climbing trees. The Engineer had the chainsaw (with a new chain he'd been holding out on us) tied to a rope so he could drag it up the tree and not worry if he dropped it (which he did once).
The big drama there was when one of the branches came down. Now, I was on the ground observing everything and occasionally grabbing some hanging limbs to pull the branch into my yard, so I saw when the branch came down and the 'Y' of the branch landed on either side of him. When he cut one of the limbs so the branch would go ahead and fall the rest of the way down, some part of it came back and hit him in the face. He received a solid gash on the side of his eyebrow that initially looked like it needed stitches, but we used some medical tape to hold it together since it wasn't bleeding that bad after the initial rush.
Needless to say, he was done. I told him so.
Yesterday was Easter and we had quite the full day. Our pastor has this weird issue with holidays to where he doesn't seem to celebrate them at all. So at church, he continues to preach on whatever topic he left off on the week before. He's a regular scheherezade in this regard as he'll take a sermon with only three points and stretch it out to a month. He'll talk for an hour and comment, "would you believe that was just the introduction? I haven't reached my first point yet." So, we opted to visit another church before our regular service began at 10:30, so I could perform my musical responsibilities.
The other church was large and impersonal. They greeted us, sure, but we were on our own from there. We found our way into the sanctuary where we were largely ignored. We got comments on the princesses, but other than that and a rare handshake, no one eally cared. The service was more like a concert in that it was all very well rehearsed, but about as exciting as a funeral. If the people didn't have to stand, they didn't.
This is in stark contrast to our little church where the music flows very spontaneously, sometimes repeat ad nauseum, and no one sits for about 30-45 minutes worth of straight praise and worship. In comparison to the polished program we witnessed, we're downright raw in the best way possible.
Since we have three princesses, an Easter Egg hunt was imminent. Before church, we had a brief hunt in the house for some hard boiled eggs the Easter Bunny had hidden here and there. After our second service, we headed out to the Queen's maternal grandparents (referred by nearly everyone as Ma and Pa) for some lunch and another Easter Egg hunt, this time with plastic prize eggs that, of course, contained prizes.
Now, if the Queen's father is known for anything, it's his sharp wit. Ma and Pa have an in ground pool in their backyard complete with deck and everything, and this time of year, it is covered, but with the recent rain, there was standing water on top of the cover. Well, the Queen's father wasted no time in telling the princesses that the eggs with the money are at the bottom of the pool. The Queen is always quick to tell them not to go into the pool (not that they would...I hope).
Well, near the end, he mentioned the eggs at the bottom of the pool again, and Darth Vader was quick to reiterate that me, so I acted like I was going to jump in the pool. What did the Queen say? Well, you see, I had the camera and was taking pictures, so I didn't get anything like "don't do it," but instead she said, "not with the camera."
Not to be put aside by the undue care for the camera, I let her know that I was takign the underwater pictures of the egg hunt. It would be the Jacques Cousteau Easter Egg Hunt.
And a good laugh was had by all...
Marriage Musings
You know, many things happen that are totally worth blogging, but so many times, they happen in places where it would not be possible or convenient to take a note to remember them later. In fact, there have been a lot of things that have happened that would be interesting to note here, but I've all but forgotten them. That's very annoying actually.
So in lieu of having a memory that works, I'll go off of something recent. The Queen and I have been very happily married for nine years now, continuing to buck the system of marriages tending to be constantly failing. I've read about reasons people get divorced to try and see what we're doing that they aren't, and I do have one solid determination on some of them (I say "some" because there are some large, legitimate problems that come up, but based on some of the reasons out there, this is a big applicability).
One observation is that people have no idea how to compromise. They get caught up on the "me" aspect of their lives, and forget that marriage is a union of two people into one life. Two people have two opinions on a lot of things, and it's very important to compromise on a lot of points. If two people are stubborn on an issue, fights about other things break out and the harmony goes down the tubes. So you can't agree on what color to paint the bathroom... is it so important that you have your way on the lilac shade that you'd sacrifice your marriage over it? Rarely is that stated to be the reason, but any disagreement stems from just that: an inability to agree. That's what the word means: "not agree." Worse yet, someone "gives in" without agreeing at all, and suddenly a rift forms where they feel all put out because they never liked lilac.
Also consider this: how many arguments happen first thing in the morning? Probably quite a few since most people don't fully wake up and get in the right frame of mind until later in the day, so talking about deep issues 5 minutes after waking up is rarely a good idea. The Queen and I have a rule about this. We follow it religiously because it is essential to us having a happy marriage. The rule is this:
Never take seriously anything said before 10:00am or up to an hour after waking up.
This means that no matter how grumpy someone is first thing in the morning, nothing they say can or will be held against them. People sometimes say ridiculous things when they wake up or complain about things they're normally okay with, and sometimes, things said can come across as unintentionally hurtful when no ill intent is meant. This leads to a lot of apologizing once the day wears on far enough for the right mind to set in, so rather than be upset or spend all day trying fix all the ills of the morning, we have that standing rule that we take nothing serious that early.
An odd thing to me about people who live together and won't get married; they almost always give the same reason for not getting married: "we're happy as we are and are afraid to change it." I always wonder what they think is going to change. After all, they're living together, so they're already sharing everything that way. Is it the combining of their lives outside of the house? You know, no one makes you combine all your stuff when you get married. If you want to, and both people agree to it, you can be married (i.e. not living in sin) and still maintain your own bank account, etc.
But when you throw that out there, the same people would wonder, "Well, then why get married if nothing will change?" There's one thing that will change. How everyone views your relationship. When a couple is just living together, they are viewed as something temporary that could change at any moment. Even if there are kids involved, they are not viewed as a permanent couple. But after getting married, there is a change to the viewpoint in people's eyes. There is a sense of permanence; that the commitment is finalized and there's actually a family established.
I suspect that the commitment part of that equation is a big part of why people don't get married. If they keep just "living together," then they don't have to take that step they fear so much. The bad news is that fear of commitment and even the statistic of 50% of marriages failing won't change whether that couple will remain together. And the irony is that the block they have in their heads would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if they did get married, so they could end up saying "I told you so" when they get married.
I've heard of couple engaged for 10 years to be married for one and then split forever. The inclination is to say "well, they said it was a bad idea," but the reality they don't want to admit is that it wasn't a bad idea, they just weren't interested in working at it. Some may jeer at me for saying that, but it's true. You can succeed at anything you want to succeed at if you just work at it. Marriage is not an easy road, but any couple can succeed if both parties are interested in making it work, and the rewards of it working are far greater than the single life could ever provide.
And now to sit back and think of another topic to talk about...
So in lieu of having a memory that works, I'll go off of something recent. The Queen and I have been very happily married for nine years now, continuing to buck the system of marriages tending to be constantly failing. I've read about reasons people get divorced to try and see what we're doing that they aren't, and I do have one solid determination on some of them (I say "some" because there are some large, legitimate problems that come up, but based on some of the reasons out there, this is a big applicability).
One observation is that people have no idea how to compromise. They get caught up on the "me" aspect of their lives, and forget that marriage is a union of two people into one life. Two people have two opinions on a lot of things, and it's very important to compromise on a lot of points. If two people are stubborn on an issue, fights about other things break out and the harmony goes down the tubes. So you can't agree on what color to paint the bathroom... is it so important that you have your way on the lilac shade that you'd sacrifice your marriage over it? Rarely is that stated to be the reason, but any disagreement stems from just that: an inability to agree. That's what the word means: "not agree." Worse yet, someone "gives in" without agreeing at all, and suddenly a rift forms where they feel all put out because they never liked lilac.
Also consider this: how many arguments happen first thing in the morning? Probably quite a few since most people don't fully wake up and get in the right frame of mind until later in the day, so talking about deep issues 5 minutes after waking up is rarely a good idea. The Queen and I have a rule about this. We follow it religiously because it is essential to us having a happy marriage. The rule is this:
Never take seriously anything said before 10:00am or up to an hour after waking up.
This means that no matter how grumpy someone is first thing in the morning, nothing they say can or will be held against them. People sometimes say ridiculous things when they wake up or complain about things they're normally okay with, and sometimes, things said can come across as unintentionally hurtful when no ill intent is meant. This leads to a lot of apologizing once the day wears on far enough for the right mind to set in, so rather than be upset or spend all day trying fix all the ills of the morning, we have that standing rule that we take nothing serious that early.
An odd thing to me about people who live together and won't get married; they almost always give the same reason for not getting married: "we're happy as we are and are afraid to change it." I always wonder what they think is going to change. After all, they're living together, so they're already sharing everything that way. Is it the combining of their lives outside of the house? You know, no one makes you combine all your stuff when you get married. If you want to, and both people agree to it, you can be married (i.e. not living in sin) and still maintain your own bank account, etc.
But when you throw that out there, the same people would wonder, "Well, then why get married if nothing will change?" There's one thing that will change. How everyone views your relationship. When a couple is just living together, they are viewed as something temporary that could change at any moment. Even if there are kids involved, they are not viewed as a permanent couple. But after getting married, there is a change to the viewpoint in people's eyes. There is a sense of permanence; that the commitment is finalized and there's actually a family established.
I suspect that the commitment part of that equation is a big part of why people don't get married. If they keep just "living together," then they don't have to take that step they fear so much. The bad news is that fear of commitment and even the statistic of 50% of marriages failing won't change whether that couple will remain together. And the irony is that the block they have in their heads would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if they did get married, so they could end up saying "I told you so" when they get married.
I've heard of couple engaged for 10 years to be married for one and then split forever. The inclination is to say "well, they said it was a bad idea," but the reality they don't want to admit is that it wasn't a bad idea, they just weren't interested in working at it. Some may jeer at me for saying that, but it's true. You can succeed at anything you want to succeed at if you just work at it. Marriage is not an easy road, but any couple can succeed if both parties are interested in making it work, and the rewards of it working are far greater than the single life could ever provide.
And now to sit back and think of another topic to talk about...
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