So many people talk about marriages having ebbs and flows. But it’s hard to know what that means in your early twenties when the longest relationship for most is the one they had with their parents. This reader recently submitted her story with 40:20 Vision about what she calls her “untraditional yet fulfilling 15+ year marriage. Married at 24 to a man 10 years her senior, she shares some of the highs and lows as she and her husband weathered living in different countries, separation and some ‘belated” growing up. She still says it’s the best thing that ever happened to her yet she warns against the “tyranny of expectations”. You have to be open, ready and define your marriage for yourselves.
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“The biggest stroke of luck I think that can ever befall anyone is to find an excellent match. I don’t have unrealistic standards. I don’t think you can find somebody who will satisfy every need you have in the universe. But to find someone with whom you know you’ll always value and who’ll always value you and have no question about that.”
You have to be open to a relationship first. Then it has to be about the deepest values that you hold. On the outside, your opinions may sound very different. We argued about everything when we first met…politics, religion, culture. But we had so much in common. We are both curious and caring … the world mattered to both of us. We always enjoyed time together. I just knew he’d always be the most fun to be with. It was just easy and we shared the same world structure.”
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“Never take each other for granted. You have to make sure you keep enough of a platform together because you can get lost in your own separate worlds very easily.”
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“A marriage is like a universe. It’s all undecided. Nobody can ever plan it. Everybody has their own definition. There are worlds within worlds in a marriage. You don’t know that when you’re twenty.
The edifice of marriage is actually every single day of it. It’s not the institution. It’s the bricks. It’s the private jokes. It’s the routines. It’s the way you know somebody else so well and yet can still learn so much from them. Honestly, the people who know you best are the custodians of your identity. They can call you’re b*******. They know you. They’ve seen you grow. They’ve seen you screw up. They are your treasures. You don’t want to squander that. They made an investment in you.”
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“You can’t keep going around discarding people without losing part of yourself… because other people build you. I had an incredibly rich set of acquaintances, which is great on one level, but I didn’t have any sense of the limitations of acquaintanceship vs. intimacy. I didn’t attend to the core relationship. I wanted to be in love with everyone at the same time. That’s an unrealistic ambition. You need a few long term friendships as well as the primary relationship that are worth investing in.”
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“I went through a period of almost “trying on” what my life have been like if I’ve taken a different path and not gotten married at twenty four. But there was something he wanted to fight for because to him, I’m the person he wants around. I’m his chief counselor and cheerleader and all around best company and he’s not letting that out of his sight. I’m the balloon and he’s like the ballast. We exert the right amount of pull and gravitational force just kind of works. I’m lucky. I’m really lucky. There’s no question.”
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“My husband believes in me and I believe in his judgment. He gives me confidence. If he believes in me, I have to be worth believing in. Just to know that there’s always someone in your corner gives you the drive to go for your dreams.”
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“The biggest thing I learned was to not to f*** around with what’s really important. I grew up a little bit belatedly.”