So the world is blowing up with all the details of Katie and Tom's failed
marriage and all that that entails. When I was sinlge, I devoured details of
celebrity divorces. The scandal! The intrigue! Now that I'm married, it kinda
just makes me sad. I hate when that ever popular 50% stat is proven right. So
whenever I start to get a little down about my own relationship or the state of
marriages in general, I pull up what is probably my most favorite piece of
writing on the internet. I know, that's a bold statement. But it's true. Author
Lydia Netzer has been married for 15 years. She and her husband aren't experts
on marriage, just their own, and you can tell they are super proud of their
relationship and totally still in love.
As Lydia says, she and her husband Dan got married when they were 25 years
old. I love her self decprication: "Looking back I’m surprised we didn’t, as 25
year olds, self-destruct just for the heck of it. Now that we are older, we are
perhaps surprisingly also wiser." Trust me, they are definitely wiser.
Here are the things they have learned over the years, that helped them stay
married and -- gasp! -- even happy for fifteen years. (Beyond that, she says
you’re on your own. She can’t promise another 15.) Their list does not resemble
the one you will find in
Cosmo or
Ladies’ Home Journal. She says
they have never had a regular date night, nor do they prioritize “communication”
or play sex games or see a therapist. He doesn’t bring her flowers every
Thursday, she doesn’t cook his favorite food very often. But they do have some
other ideas. Here they are in Lydia and Dan's own words!
1. Go to bed mad.The old maxim that you shouldn’t
go to bed mad is stupid. Sometimes you need to just go to freakin’ bed. “Let not
the sun go down upon your wrath” is prefaced in the Bible by the phrase “Be
angry and sin not.” So, who’s to say it doesn’t mean “Stay angry, bitches. Don’t
let the sun go down on that awesome fierce wrath of yours.” Seriously. Whoever
interpreted this to mean that you should stay up after midnight, tear-stained
and petulant, trying to iron out some kind of overtired and breathy accord --
was stupid. Shut up, go to bed, let your husband get some sleep. In the morning,
eat some pancakes. Everything will seem better, I swear.
2. Laugh if you can.In any fight, there is one
person who is really mad, and one person who isn’t that mad. That person should
deflect the fight. Make a joke, do something stupid or corny, make the other
person laugh. If the fight is very serious for you and you feel like you really
want to plant your flag and die on this hill, fine. Do it. But if you’re
fighting for entertainment, or because you’re just reacting, then you be the one
to deflect. Fights are bad. Deflecting a fight whenever possible is a good idea.
When you’re the one who’s being pissy and raw, and the other person helps you
get out of it and brings about peace, that feels fantastic. This was a hard
lesson to learn, for me. Letting Dan deflect a fight is the best thing, now. He
does it really well.
3. Don’t criticize. Ever.Here is a fact: Whatever
critical thing that you are about to say to your wife is already being loudly
articulated in her head. And if it’s true, she already feels like crap about it.
Assuming you married someone intelligent enough to like you and sane enough to
let you put a ring on it, trust that they are self-aware enough to know when
they screwed up. It may feel good to you in that moment to say the critical
thing, let it go ringing through the air in all its sonorous correctness, but it
will feel awful to hear it. The only, only way it’s beneficial to give your wife
criticism of any kind is if you’re absolutely positive she is completely
unaware. And you better find the nicest, kindest way possible to tell her. And
even then, good luck convincing her. Their recognition of the thing you are
helpfully trying to point out will be INHIBITED, not facilitated, by your
criticism. And then you’re the asshole. So be careful.
4. Be the mirror.Your husband is the mirror in
which you see yourself. And the things you say to him give him an image of
himself too, which he will believe. You want him to believe it, so make it good.
Be a mirror that reflects something positive: you’re smart, you’re successful,
you’re fantastic in the sack, you’re a great provider, you’re the best. Can you
MAKE him any of these things just by telling him he is? I don’t know, but
consider this: the alternative really sucks. The things my husband says to me
are 1000 times more convincing than anyone else’s opinion on earth. Don’t think
he won’t believe you because you’re married and you’re contractually obligated
to say nice things. He’ll believe the shitty, insulting things you say, and the
gloriously positive things.
5. Be proud and brag.Let your spouse hear you
talking about them in glowing terms to other people. Be foolish. Be obvious. It
will mean everything. You will stay married forever.
6. Do your own thing.Dan races bicycles. I write
books. I don’t race bicycles or have any desire to race bicycles. He doesn’t
write books, nor does he even read the books that I write. Seriously. And I
don’t care. My opinion is that he’s the fastest, coolest most awesome bike racer
ever. His opinion is that I’m the bestest, coolest writer ever. We don’t have to
know all about cycling or writing in order to form these opinions -- in fact
knowledge of literature or actually reading my book might damage Dan’s opinion
of me as “best writer since the dawn of time.” We can still support each other
without being all up in the other person’s stuff. Doing your own thing, having
your own friends, being completely insanely passionate about something that the
other person has no idea, really, about, is awesome. It allows your spouse to be
your cheerleader, uncomplicated by knowledge or personal investment. And it
means you’ll always have stuff to talk about, because you’re not overlapping all
the time. You don’t have to read the same books either. You don’t have to have
the same friends.
7. Have kids.Kids stop you from being as crazy as
you want to be. Because when you have kids, you can’t be that crazy.
8. Get really good at sex.You’ve got all the time
in the world to get really really good, not just at sex in general, but at
having sex with your one particular husband. You should make it your life’s
mission to become the perfect sex machine exactly for him. And he for you. There
is no reason to hold back, or be embarrassed, or not ask questions, and get
everything working properly. There’s absolutely no excuse for letting years drag
on without becoming fully skilled, gifted sex partners for each other. It makes
everything so much better. Does talking about this make you uncomfortable? How
uncomfortable would it make you to know that your spouse is secretly, silently
“just okay” with your sexual performance? Yeah. You want to last fifteen years,
remember? That’s a long time to be mildly happy.
9. Move.Live in different houses. In different
parts of the country. Travel. Make it so that you can look back and divide up
your life into the years you spent in different cities, or different houses. If
you’re feeling stuck geographically or physically, you can confuse yourself into
thinking you’re stuck romantically. See your husband in different places, in
different contexts, in different countries even. Try it. Take him to a
mountaintop and give him another look. Pretty sexy. Take him to a new city and
check out his profile. Along the same lines, don’t be afraid to change
personally, or let your wife change as a person. Don’t worry about “growing
apart.” Be brave and evolve. Become completely different. Don’t gather moss.
Stagnation is unattractive.
10. Stop thinking temporarily.Marriage is not
conditional. It is permanent. Your husband will be with you until you die. That
is a given. It sounds obvious, but really making it a given is hard. You tend to
think in “ifs” and “thens” even when you’ve publicly committed to forever. If he
does this, I won’t tolerate it. If I do this, he’ll leave me. If I get fat. If I
change jobs. If he says mean things. If he doesn’t pay more attention. It’s
natural, especially in the beginning of your marriage, to keep those doubts in
your head. But the sooner you can get go of the idea that marriage is temporary,
and will end if certain awful conditions are met, the sooner you will let go of
all kinds of conflict and stress. Yes, you may find yourself in a horrible
situation where it’s absolutely necessary to get a divorce. But going into it
with divorce in the back of your mind, even in the way way way back of your
mind, is going to cause a lot of unnecessary angst. Accept that you’re going to
stay with him. He’s going to stay with you. Inhabit that and figure out how to
make THAT work, instead of living with the “what if”s and “in case of”s.
11. Do not put yourself in trouble’s way.Leave
your ex boyfriends and girlfriends alone. I’m sure you’re very trustworthy.
Aren’t we all? The thing is, there’s absolutely no reason to test it. Your
husband and your marriage are more valuable than any friendship. Any friendship
that troubles the marriage should be over immediately. Protect it with knives
and teeth, not because it’s fragile but because it’s precious. Don’t ass around
with a “hall pass” or a “harmless flirtation.” Adultery isn’t an event, it’s a
process with an event at the end. Don’t put your feet on a path that could lead
someplace bad.
12. Make a husband pact with your friends.The
husband pact says this: I promise to listen to you complain about your
husband even in the most dire terms, without it affecting my good opinion of
him. I will agree with your harshest criticism, accept your gloomiest
predictions. I will nod and furrow my brow and sigh when you describe him as a
hideous ogre. Then when your fight is over and love shines again like a
beautiful sunbeam in your life, I promise to forget everything you said and
regard him as the most charming of princes once more. The husband pact is
very useful because you want to be able to vent to your friend without having
her actually start hating your husband. Because you don’t really mean all those
things you say. And she, the swearer of the pact, knows this.
13. Bitch to his mother, not yours.This is one I
did read somewhere in a magazine, and it’s totally true. His mother will forgive
him. Yours never will. If you’re a man, bitch to your friends. They expect
it.
14. Be loyal.All the crap you read in magazines
about honesty, sense of humor, communication, sensitivity, date nights, couples
weekends, blah blah blah can be trumped by one word: loyalty. You and your
spouse are a team of two. It is you against the world. No one else is allowed on
the team, and no one else will ever understand the team’s rules. This is okay.
The team is not adversarial, the team does not tear its members down, the team
does not sabotage the team’s success. Teammates work constantly to help and
better their teammates. Loyalty means you put the other person in your marriage
first all the time, and you let them put you first. Loyalty means subverting
your whims or desires of the moment to better meet your spouse’s whims or
desires, with the full understanding and expectation that they will be doing the
same. This is the heart of everything, and it is a tricky balance. Sometimes it
sways one way and some the other. Sometimes he gets to be crazy, sometimes it’s
your turn. Sometimes she’s in the spotlight, sometimes you. Ups and downs,
ultimately, don’t matter because the team endures.
15. Trust the person you married.For two people
who are trying to help each other, it can almost be harder to let the other
person help you than it is to be the one who’s helping. It can be harder to let
the other person deflect the fight than to be the one deflecting. It can be
harder to believe that your husband is fully committed to a lifetime of marriage
than to commit yourself. Harder to change yourself than to let the other person
change. Harder to be loved than to love. Weird, but true. I’m saying this to
everyone who’s newly married, and to myself: trust that person. Love them
completely and let them love you. If it all goes to seed, it’s going to hurt
either way. Better to have gone into it full throttle. Full throttle marriage is
a thrilling ride.
This list is simply the best marriage advice I’ve ever read.
It closely resembles a lot of what my parents live, and they are the best
example of a happy marriage I’ve ever known. Like I said, I read this list
often…do you agree with me that this is such smart advice? Do you do these 15
things with your husband or significant other?
{Lydia Netzer’s original
article,
complete with adorable pictures!}
I saw this and felt that I needed to share, with others! so here you guys go!
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