I have a challenge for my readers. Many of you have marriages and many of you had expectations when you go married. More of ten than not, our expectations influence our decisions both in the past and in the future. While you may not have gone into your marriage as that 10 or 12 year old girl or boy who considered what married life would be like – the expectations you set then trailed in on the train of your wedding dress or coat tails of your jacket.
What Dreams Are Made Of
In our dreams we knew what career we were going to have and we knew who we were going to marry. The man or woman of our dreams may not have had a name, but they had qualities. They were someone who deeply attracted you and was also your best friend. They were the person you wanted to play with, work with and share all the ups and downs of life with.
For many of us, we may even have seen that dream come true. But have you ever heard the old cliché of be careful what you wish for? In marriage, this is very true. Getting what we wish for doesn’t mean it’s what we need or worse – think about all the things that were just crucial to your life when you were 10, then when you were 15 and now at 30 – chances are what could make or break your world at 15 doesn’t have the same weight or impact on your life at 30.
We Change – Marriages Change
If you are sticking with me from my first paragraph, I do have a challenge for my readers. The challenge is sharing your positive tales of your marriage – the ups and the downs. I’m going to kick things off and tell you about the dream that I had – and the reality that I found and why sometimes, when dreams come true you get what you want – but you don’t get what you need.
When I was younger, I made the pronouncement that I wanted to marry a man that could argue with me as hard as he could play. My wish actually came true because my husband is perfectly capable of standing up to me. This lead to a lot of conflict on and off over the years because we are both stubborn and pig-headed; we could butt heads over the simplest of issues.
Our ability to argue is not one of the most positive traits in our marriage. We can take an argument and wring it out for all of its worth. Over the years, we’ve worked on our methods of arguing so that we don’t stay in fights all the time. We’ve honed our listening skills and we’ve both learned the value of an apology as well as time outs.,
Making the Best of Our Situation
We’ve learned that through arguments we sort out insecurities, our own blind spots, our differences and more often than not – we discover that while we are arguing two sides of an issue; our base opinions remain the same. What used to be yelling matches are now more likely to be heated debates. Our marriage isn’t perfect, but we’ve grown and we’ve evolved and we’ve made it work for us.
So – sometimes we don’t listen. Sometimes we talk too much. Sometimes we don’t talk enough. But we’re together and we’re making it work. So if you look back at the dreams you’ve had – and the marriage you made – what positive tales can you tell?