Rachel Davis

There was something appealing about the idea of being a wife. Something settled, secure, grown-up. I would never have admitted this to anyone; in fact, it took me years to finally admit it to myself. Though I didn’t know it at the time and wouldn’t have admitted it anyway, I was as much in love with the idea of marriage as I was in love with my betrothed, more in love with the idea of being loved than I was in love with John.

There was something appealing about the idea of having a wedding. A big celebration, lots of attention, lots of gifts, “making it official.” When I was 22, I was enormously worldly and knowledgeable. I was so…adult. Having the mere title of “girlfriend” was a slap in the face of my unquestionable maturity and sophistication. “Fiancée”? Well, it was a step in the right direction, but only “wife” would effectively seal the deal.

I was focused on the label. We’d been dating for years; it was embarrassing to still be just a ‘girlfriend.’ What was wrong with me? Didn’t John want to marry me? If he were truly serious about our relationship, he’d propose to me. If he really loved me, he’d be excited to be my husband, wouldn’t he? The list went on and on.

For me, John’s proposal served as a concrete affirmation that his love was real, that he really wanted me for the rest of his life. It was a good feeling, naturally; everyone wants to be wanted. But I must have wanted that feeling so badly that I didn’t question whether the relationship was the right thing for us. I was so excited about the idea of being loved that I didn’t make sure I was ready to offer that same love in return. Marriage became a visible proof that I was desirable and lovable. And besides, I was getting old! All of my friends were getting married. If everyone else had found her husband, I’d better hurry up and find mine!

Don’t get me wrong: I loved John. I loved him in the best and most genuine way a naïve, inexperienced, insecure 22-year-old could possibly know how to love. I truly believed that we were the exception—that our expectations were realistic, that our love was ever-lasting, that our marriage would thrive. I had to believe this, after all, or I’d have never gone through with it.

Like too many women—young women, especially—I became fixated on the idea of being “a wife” without truly focusing on the coming decades of our marriage partnership. I wanted to be married, and I had plenty of good reasons: because John and I were in love, because marriage would make our relationship “official,” because it was the logical next step after years of dating, because we were “going to be together forever anyway.” I wanted to be a wife. I wanted the stability and security and happiness and love that “wifedom” offered.

I learned a tough lesson: Marriage is not synonymous with stability and security and happiness and love. Read that last sentence again.

 Illusions and Big Pictures

All of this is incredibly difficult to admit, to put on paper. After all, no woman wants to believe she’s foolish enough to simply fall in love with an illusion. I wouldn’t be writing it, though, if I didn’t genuinely believe that my experience is all too common, and that thousands of other women know exactly what I’m talking about. We have an illusion of marriage: we stand too close to the easel, painting a painstaking portrait of what marriage will mean for us, but never taking a step back to examine the bigger picture. We never acknowledge that for marriage, “the bigger picture” means we won’t be the only painter holding a brush.

Every woman believes that her own marriage will be the exception to the staggering divorce rate rule. You don’t hear engaged couples contemplating divorce. “We know what we’re in for,” they say. “We know it’ll be hard sometimes, but we love each other and we’re ready for any challenges.” These kinds of statements would be cute and funny and heart-warming if they weren’t so naïve and predictable—and wrong. I chirped these words just as happily and predictably as thousands of other young women do. Sure, I’d been told that marriage wouldn’t always be easy, that it was often hard work, that some days I wouldn’t feel like being married anymore. But these warnings rolled off me like the pounds I was losing to fit into my wedding dress. In my 22-year-old wisdom and maturity, I knew that nothing would change too dramatically, that John and I shared something special and unique, that the “work” of marriage would never be too much work. I knew we could handle it. I knew we were ready.

Here’s the thing: you can’t be ready for challenging times, because you can’t understand them until you’re there. You can’t know what you’re in for until you’re in it. I suppose it’s much like having a child: you can read all the books, talk to other parents, take classes, and baby-sit until your diaper-changing thumb is purple and callused. But you will never truly be prepared—you will not understand the reality—until your child arrives. In marriage, just as in child-rearing, you will sometimes be overwhelmed, sometimes miserable, sometimes exhausted. If you’re a parent, you heard all these warnings—but you didn’t truly understand them until your baby arrived. You wanted that baby, and yes, of course you knew there would be sleepless nights and lots of challenges, but you were ready for them. Remember?

Personal Epiphanies

At 22, I was lost in my own ideas, in my own definition of what it meant for me to be “a good wife” and for John to be “a good husband.” He rarely loaded the dishwasher—and when he did, he put the plates in backwards and didn’t keep the utensils in separate compartments. He rested on the couch while I vacuumed. He left his dirty socks on the floor. He wasted money on tools—buying himself both metric and standard sets! He’d spend a day working in the lawn and garden when there were far more important tasks needing attention inside.

Horrible, huh? It’s hard to imagine how I survived!

Okay, so there were bigger problems than those I’ve mentioned above. No relationship is as simple as a few pages might suggest. But looking back on it, the situation was as tragic as it was hilarious. Most tragic is that I see it all the time now: women getting angry and upset over the most tedious, unimportant, ridiculous details. (“What kind of caveman are you?! You don’t even rinse the dishes before you load them?!”) If we’d learn to take a step back, examine what’s truly important, and focus simply on being nice, our early years of young marriage would fare much better. Too many young wives treat their husbands like robots—automatons designated to behave in a specific way and accomplish specific tasks. We forget that our husbands are human, and as such, flawed. We forget that we, too, are flawed.

But it wasn’t just John’s role as a husband that caused trouble. Even as a modern, intelligent,  independent woman, I succumbed to the notion that good wives—no matter how smart or ambitious—also kept immaculate homes, prepared delicious meals, and always looked fresh and presentable. Good wives were beautiful, warm, giving, domestic, accommodating. They spoke softly, beaming with pride and happiness for their messy, screaming children. At 22, I wanted to be this woman. Talk about unnecessary, self-inflicted pressure: I wanted to be perfect. And when I discovered (quickly, thank you!) that I was not perfect, I fought fiercely to pretend—an exhausting, and taxing, and ultimately impossible proposition.

Instead of embracing the woman I was, the 22-year-old me sought to mold her into my definition of “a good wife.” It never occurred to me that my definition might be ridiculous. Instead, I just assumed I was a colossal failure. I began to question my worth as a female: If my identity were now wrapped in the label of “wife,” then I’d damned well better succeed in that identity. The trouble was, nowhere in my definition of “wife” did I exist. I was smart, opinionated, talkative, demanding. I wore frayed sweatshirts and oversized flannel pants. Sure, I could make a fantastic dinner—but I could make an even more fantastic argument for why you should do the cooking tonight.

I beat myself up, for many years, for my many failings. But at the core of all those failings, I was just a naïve young girl who wanted to appear grown-up, who wanted to do a good job and prove that she was a good wife. I faulted myself. If I were a better woman, I wouldn’t have these problems. I wouldn’t feel like my ideas and opinions weren’t being respected, because if I were a better woman, I wouldn’t have those ideas and opinions in the first place. If I were a better woman, I’d shut my mouth and open that oven door.

Pervasive Pressures

Wisdom doesn’t always come with age—but it rarely comes without it. Youth is the most clever of seductresses, always convincing us that we’re wiser, smarter, more worldly than we’re ever likely to be. As I reflect on the lessons I’ve learned, the ideas I’ve developed, the beliefs I’ve cemented, I’m left with an overwhelming urge to talk with (and shake!) my twenty-something-year-old self. I can’t imagine how I so blindly allowed myself to believe the million crazy, culturally- and cartoon-instilled ideas of what marriage would mean. I can’t believe I let myself be trapped by all the social, religious, and cultural messages extolling the traditional virtues of “the good wife.” Don’t get me wrong: I embrace many of those very virtues, but I will never again be imprisoned by them.

It’s nearly impossible to offer a coherent argument about marriage without acknowledging the larger cultural context in which it occurs. We’re inundated with these messages and expectations as soon as we exit the womb. By the time we’re walking, forget it: we’ve memorized and internalized all kinds of ideas about mommies and daddies, princes and frogs, “kisses of true love” and trading our beautiful, powerful voices for great legs in hopes of landing our very own prince. We’re taught not to “chase” boys, to wait to be kissed, and, for heaven’s sake, to be shorter than, smaller than, and dumber than our boyfriends—or at least to make an honest effort. We’re raised to believe that good girls follow a good path, growing up to become good wives and good mothers. We’re taught that our lives will not be complete until we’ve marched down that spectator-filled, rose-petal-covered aisle in our (size 2, virgin-white) wedding gown to join our lives with a mythically handsome hero-of-a-man who will provide generously for us and hold us safely in his chiseled, muscular arms.

The pressure is intense—for both men and women. Most dangerous is that this pressure is pervasive, and too few of us take the time to notice, examine, and question it. As humans, we’re driven by the need to define ourselves within a larger social context, and the storybook dream of marriage is a deeply ingrained part of that culture.

I’m not arguing that marriage is bad; it’s fantastic in the right circumstances and with mature, realistic, adult expectations. There’s nothing wrong or abnormal about wanting a partner with whom to share our lives. But if our fairy-tale philosophies about love, marriage, and commitment are based on appallingly unrealistic ideas, it’s no wonder so many newlyweds feel lost, disillusioned, and disappointed with the realities we discover.

One of my favorite arguments about marriage comes from Dr. Judith Sill’s A Fine Romance. Sills argues that too many people end up “seeing marriage as an endpoint, rather than an opportunity to begin.” She continues with a most powerful message: “You don’t get a marriage when you get married. What you get is the opportunity to create a marriage.”

The Only Certainty is Uncertainty

Probably the easiest way to solve the problems that come with young marriage is to simply outlaw marriage until young people aren’t so young anymore. It’s a simple, silly solution that ignores the big, fat reality: young people who join together in marriage often lack wisdom and maturity. But we already know that wisdom and maturity won’t necessarily come with age. The point is that it’s nearly impossible to offer “one-size-fits-all” advice when marriages are capable of failing for so many varied reasons. I’ve met too many women who spend their wedding nights with John Deere, honestly expecting to wake up next to Johnny Depp. I’ve met too many men who are shocked to see their silly, bubbly, fun wives become serious and solemn after baby is born. I’ve known a woman whose marriage began crumbling when her husband decided that his career ambitions required a return to college. “I never thought for better or worse meant him completely wrecking our lifestyle, moving out of our nice house, and being in debt up to our ears. This wasn’t part of the plan.”

As women, we don’t willfully set out to change our husbands; we just ignore or overlook certain clues, assuming that time will naturally bring about much-needed changes in their behaviors and ideas. Well, girls, we’re right about that: time will naturally bring about certain changes—but we can neither predict nor control those changes. If we marry a 23-year-old drug addict believing that “he’ll grow up and stop partying so much,” we can’t be surprised to end up with a 33-year-old drug addict who now has a much bigger problem. We must exhale, stop holding our collective breaths as we wait for our husbands to become more sensitive, more outgoing, more fun, more responsible, more insert-your-desired-character-trait-here. If we choose to get married, we must take a step back, examine our true motivations and expectations, and marry for the right reasons.

I’ll be a fantastic wife if there’s a second time around for me. Sure, I’ll have changed and grown in countless ways. But more importantly, I’ll be smarter about choosing a partner who’s compatible with me, a partner who shares my insistence on open communication. I will base my marriage on shared commitment, realistic expectations, and enduring respect, and I’ll know better than to nit-pick over stupid details. I will not marry a man in the hopes of molding him into a more perfect man; I will marry a man whose irritating idiosyncrasies are tolerable, but whose core is irresistible, irreplaceable. I will marry a man who understands and accepts me as I am—an imperfect person, an imperfect woman, and no doubt an imperfect wife.