Marriage! It’s hard, right? Can I get an amen?

So I’ve been doing some thinking recently, and I think that marriage is crazy. I don’t know about everyone else, but as soon as I got married I changed. It’s like your entire world changes. All the work and all the effort that goes into finding, and attracting a mate becomes useless overnight. So the nice car, nice shirt, tan abs, don’t seem to matter as much anymore. Now I find good gas-mileage, t-shirts, avoiding skin cancer, and good food matter much more. My focus isn’t on attracting women, it’s on planning the family’s future. However, planning the family’s future isn’t very sexy. In fact, planning the future is down right boring.

Not to mention that the older you get the more defined your likes and dislikes are. You become more and more exclusive, wasting less time on crap you don’t care about. You don’t have the time to fake interest in stuff you don’t like, not to mention your self-confidence is a little higher so you don’t really care what anyone else thinks about what you like. So what do you do if the stuff you really like is not even in the spectrum of stuff your spouse likes? What do you do on those days when you aren’t fighting crime together, or vacationing in paradise, or dining in style. What do you do on those days when the dog won’t stop barking, the kid is acting like a brat, but you feel guilty because you know he just needs attention, the laundry is never ending and outrageous, you can’t find time to move the damn dishes out of the dishwasher and back into the cabinets, not to mention the folded laundry piled up in the basket, the oil still needs to be changed in the car, and it looks like you should just give up on trying to remember to water the freakin‘ plants, not to mention eating a meal that doesn’t involve a single piece of cheese, and a pickle isn’t in your future. What do you do, when it’s just boring, monotonous everyday stuff. How do you make that sexy? How do you not blame your spouse for your misery? How do you find the attraction and romance that got you married in the first place?

I don’t have the answer, I just find myself struggling with that exact thing right now. I talk about things to help me find answers, and I thought I would talk to you about this to get some ideas. If you have any throw some comments my way. In the little bit I mentioned it at work, I found a couple people who could exactly relate, which is always reassuring so I thought if anyone else was in this situation, it might help you feel better knowing you aren’t the only one. Marriage is tough, and it’s hard not to think you are going to end up like the other 50%, trying to find just the right second wife/husband. Sometimes it even looks like the better way to go, but then reality snaps you back, and you realize, I wasn’t that naive when I was younger, and even though we’ve both changed, we aren’t that much different from before. Just because it’s not new, doesn’t mean it isn’t good, and that’s the part that is the hardest to work through. It’ not new and exciting, it’s a been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the kid to prove it kind of situation. No matter how you spin it or look at it when you get right down to it, it’s not the movies, there isn’t a cool soundtrack in the background to set the mood, and everyone isn’t beautiful all the time, and always without gas, and getting to do what they want, or on a life journey or at the beginning of the best career in the world. You’re not going to end up in a battle between whether you should date the hot doctor, lawyer, or professional volleyball player. It just doesn’t happen, and I think that makes our real lives look that much more dull, and make us feel like there must be more out there, and other people are living these amazing glamorous lives. What the hell am I doing?

Well I’ve rambled enough. What’s it come down to? I love my wife, and I love my family, and just writing this makes me think about how cool it is to have a real life and a real family where it isn’t perfect all the time, because when great things do happen, I can really appreciate them.