Five Years of Marriage and Counting
What makes a marriage work? Is the answer to the question based on the conditions of the times or the couple? Is the answer to this question a timeless one or one identified by the times?
With five years of marriage, and fifteen years total together thus far, what allows our union to thrive are tenets that seem timeless, yet carry a nuanced defining of our personal balances of tradition and modern values. In a few words, our pillars are trust and communication. By traditional standards, there is some bending of gender roles in our home. We perceive ourselves to be modernists that have kept some traditional values passed down to us, which have proven useful and discarded what isn’t. Similarly, we have not fully adapted modern gender fluid roles and values that do not serve our union and goals. We are a mix of time and traditions that work for us.
We have learned in year five to value experiences and gestures over gifts. We have taken some cues from the zeitgeist. Inflation means it’s okay to scale back. Love is shared in the gestures, not the materials. The small gestures of support became the big displays of affection. For example, our normal morning rule is last person out of the bed makes it, which usually means Monday through Friday that is left to Jas, but if I’m running late on a day she has to go into the office, then it is incumbent on me to make the bed, to cut back the time I’ve cut into. This also extends to the weekend, whereas I naturally wake up sooner, I’ll still make the bed once she’s out of it because I know it’s something she does for us daily. What’s it to me to pick up two or three days on a chore, when she’s done it for five. Similarly, taking out the trash, which is normally my task, is something Jas will do commonly from time to time. Sometimes we’ll tease each other with having done one another’s chore, but mostly we say thank you.
When people ask me, “how’s marriage?”, I can, and do, earnestly reply, “it’s good to me”. Year five of our marriage has been a beautiful mix of ups and downs. We have both had starts, and stops, to challenge ourselves to lose weight put on during the pandemic. We have struggled with balancing chores, as I finished up my school administrative leadership program, and Jas received a work promotion, which meant more responsibilities than it meant money. Had it not been for the pandemic forcing me to work from home beside her, I may have been less compassionate to what continuing to work from home looks like for her as I returned to the classroom. By that I mean, I don’t walk through the door assuming her working from home is easier in such a way that there should be more done on her part. Year five for us has been one of those years in which we know we’re taking the smaller steps towards the bigger goals, but because the steps are smaller ones, it can leave you feeling not doing much. We have taken moments to reinforce to each other that we are doing plenty and that our timeline isn’t beholden to the expectations of others; only our preparation for future opportunities.
As we enter year six of marriage, year five has taught us the importance of trust, communication and gratitude. It is because we trust each other the way we do that we can navigate disruptions and difficulties in our journey. Practicing positive forms of communicating our feelings, beliefs, perceptions and growth is critical to balancing our individual journeys with our collective one. Lastly, expressing gratitude for the ways we support each other which could be taken for granted or neglected keeps us present.
