On marriage and the naysayers.

Lately it seems like there have been an awfully disproportionate number of articles in the media about how your marriage is doomed even before it starts. I don't know if I'm noticing it more now because I'm actually married, but it's disheartening and frankly feels like people are trying to doom and gloom someone's marriage right off the bat -MINE, if I take it personally. NFL wives starting an anti-cheating club for their husbands, “discreet adultery” websites, and that 60% of married people don't know why they married their spouse to begin with were all subjects of articles featured on a popular women's website just this week alone- there were probably more but those are the ones I've commented on and can remember off the top of my head. That's one website! Multiply that times however many relationship websites there are on the internet and you may as well not even bother thinking about getting married because you're doomed from the start.

Also taking into account that I got married relatively young, the chances of my marriage failing are even greater: on our wedding day I was 24 years, 3 months and 6 days old. Not as young as some people who get married at 20 or 21 and around the average national age for first marriages. But let's face it, 24 is still really young to get married even if the national average age is 25; we moved to the northeast where the average is much higher and I've been met with some surprised looks when people find out I'm married. 24 is still very young up here. Do I regret it? Not a bit. Not even a little. I truly believe that A is the absolute best person for m, not in some cosmic soul mate way but in the way that he balances me and my personality, we want very similar things from life and we don't want kids. I have no doubt in my mind that we're going to go the distance. Will it take a bit more finangling to get us both through grad school than if we were both still single? Absolutely, but it'll get done- A has made it his priority to get me back to school even more than maybe I have and I am SO thankful for that.

My relationship with some of my friends have changed. I don't think I talk about being married at all, I am not by any means a “smug married” like featured on STFU Marrieds. Yet I feel like some of them look down on me for getting married. All of a sudden they talk nonstop about how they're single and going out clubbing when those are never conversations we had pre-August 7th, and it's baffling. I no longer rank on their list of prioritized friends because gosh, I'm square now. Got married, moved to Connecticut so my husband can attend Yale, we can afford for me to be unemployed for going on three months now- I must be a TOTALLY different Kristen than the one that loves dinosaurs, power tools, and stupid jokes. I'm not. I still love all three of those things. I still love photography and clothes, I'm still distracted with the fact that I haven't been watching what I'm eating and therefor continuing my life-long skill of yo-yo dieting. Nothing's changed and yet it feels like a lot of other people have.

It's not cool for us to be married- I'm supposed to still want to go out, get totally wasted, wear mini skirts and sleep around. Still? I never did that to begin with, not in college, not in high school, not in my two years after college before I married A. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been drunk or even “less than sober,” the shortest skirt I've ever worn was my uniform skirt in high school that I got a detention for, and I hate dancing cause I feel like a fool. I'm hopelessly square at the end of the day, and I'm okay with that. It's not cool or hip but it is me. I've never had any interest in that to begin with but all of a sudden I'm supposed to regret missing out on all that because I'm married? I know wonderful, amazing, YOUNG people who are married and still go out clubbing- with their husbands in tow. They might be cooler than me, but they're still married and therefore they MUST be trying to act like they're single again, or trying to retain their club-kid image. Because once you're married, you're not cool.

And that's just it. There are so, so many people who think they are above the “institution” of marriage. They're too outside the mainstream, or they think “why bother?” They don't want to participate in “forms of self-inposed slavery” or “misery” or “don't want to participate in something that not everyone can”. But, frankly, if I strictly went off marriage as portrayed in the media, I would have NO desire to get married at all. I wouldn't WANT that right or responsibility. However, the fact that there are marginalized people who are fighting every. single. day. trying to get that right reinforces my belief that marriage really is worth fighting for, that yes, it is going to be unspeakably HARD sometimes but ultimately it's worth it. It's not just an institution or a piece of paper, but it's a relationship, a commitment, and something you choose only if you really mean it.

So why not give us a shot? Why not say “Hey, we realize that statistically the odds are so against you that it might make you physically ache, but we're going to surround your marriage with respect and support instead of tearing down the institution and making it more likely that you'll get divorced just by the power of suggestion?” The more readily you make it an option, the more readily some people will take it. Maybe, just maybe, if we support marriages, give them compassion and a listening ear, a lot more marriages will succede and we can revamp the idea that marriage is a battlefield. Let's serve as an example to couples that will soon be able to get married (it's coming!) and not scare away the ones considering it now. Reclaim marriage for something good, committed, and real and not some bullshit institution that does more harm than good.