Our church is offering a marriage prep course this month, and I am so excited to be a part of it! Matt and I went through the course with engaged friends of ours last year, and it was fun to re-live our pre-marital counselling and compare our married selves with our engaged selves, fun to spend time together with another couple, and so fruitful to revisit the topics and invest in our marriage.
I met up with a married friend recently and was raving about how great this course is and the topics I’m thinking about. I want to have helpful things to say, but it’s hard when I know that great advice simply doesn’t teach as well as experience. I want to share so much of what I’ve learned over 5 years of marriage about the disguises that selfishness wears, the importance of adjusting expectations in different seasons, the safety net of close friends you can confide in or vent to.
But I also know that I am far from perfect, and my marriage has many ways to grow yet. My friend and I were talking about the inevitability of challenges in marriage, the impossibility of two imperfect people seamlessly forming a perfect life together, but how the challenges are hard to articulate; they go beyond trust, respect and communication to something primal and irrepressible.
Even for couples who have dated for years, or who have lived together, or have been married in the past, I think a new marriage is always mysterious and sacred and humbling. To think that it’s going to be no sweat because _______ is naïve. My wise friend pointed out that it’s like parenthood in a sense. Can we all share a smile for the pregnant woman who thinks she’s ready for parenthood because she’s done a lot of babysitting?
Marriage is a unique relationship. Sure it reflects elements of familial love, best-friendship, romantic passion, and co-operation like we see in other relationships BUT it also stands alone.
Want more thoughts on marriage? Enjoy this post and this one too!
Very true!