Happy marriage. An oxymoron?

I too am happily married.  He is my best friend and I cannot imagine my life without him.  I think the key to being happily married is accepting your partner for who he really is without expectations.  DH is very different from me and I knew it when I fell in love.  Is he the man of my dreams?  The man who met every condition on that list I had when I was still single?  Nope, not even close!  

What has marriage taught me about that list and what really makes me happy?  The list is what your fantasy for the perfect man, it can and will never come true.  Mr. Right doesn't exist for the simple reason that Mr. Right changes with time, age, and experience.  If your partner had no outside interests of his own and only shared your interests what would you have to talk about as your grew older?

I cannot begin to thank the universe and God for gifting me with a husband and partner who didn't meet my list requirements.  He challenges my expectations, pushes me to grow, makes me laugh, holds me when I cry, spoils me, and never makes me regret marrying him.  Oh don't get me wrong, we fight like cats and dogs sometimes.  There have even been times when I considered taking the easy solution and divorcing him because it was easier being single.  Marriage isn't easy, nor should it be, it takes work and commitment.  It takes communication and compromise.  A happy marriage is one where both partners agree to disagree but know that no matter what they love one another. 

Tammy

The Happy Housewife in Arizona - join the revolution and put your family first :-)

http://stitchersflock.blogspot.com/

Okay, I'm 14 years in, and can honestly report being very happily married. Sure, we have our bad days, and an occasional bad couple days in a row, but we have a relationship that allows growth and freedom and folly.

When people ask me why we are so happily married, I sometimes laugh and say, "I don't expect anything." That, of course, isn't quite true. I expect to be treated well, cared for, I expect him to be responsible and self-sufficient and kind. Those are givens.

But beyond that, I don't expect things.

I don't expect him to be my soul source of passion. Sometimes I get - as does he - all fired up about someone else. We both develop big crushes, and that's fine. That "crush" feeling is a feeling of growth and discovery. While it's "easy" to assume those feelings are for someone else, we both realize that what feels good is the growth and discovery of things inside yourself (though triggered by another person or thing.) So I don't expect him to think I'm the only woman on the planet. And vice versa.

I also don't expect him to want to do everything with me. (Or me with him.) He loves to go out and hear bands. Yuck. (loud, crowded, smokey - not me!) We both have fiercely independent lives and hobbies that we pursue without each other. I think that those allow us to continue to grow as individuals and bring that growth and energy back to each other and to the relationship.

The one thing you can expect is for your emotional "payoff" to be widely variant. Sometimes we re really really really giddy happy, sometimes we are peaceful and lovingly co-existing. We all have a continuum of emotions, and most relationships take up residence on that entire continuum at one point or another.

___________
Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE
make some good news!
www.JustCauseIt.com ( http://www.JustCauseIt.com )

After a dozen (+) years of marriage (and a few kids), I find myself very happy at times and very unhappy at other times, to point of seriously considering divorce at fairly predictable intervals. Like anonyms, neither me or husb have any serious problems. We've got a great companionship / friendship / confidante thing going. But I feel unhappy at times due to his lack of physical, verbal and emotional affection. He's a very good lover, I seldom go lacking there, he's very motivated to satisfy me and makes sure I bat 1000% too (and that counts for a LOT and during sex I think I can put up with anything, if you know what I mean). But the everyday intimacy is where I feel lonely. About every two years I confront him about it, he promises to do better, he does, then he slides in about a month's time... and the loneliness sets in again. I talk to women friends, many of whom say "that's just how men are" or "yeah, my husb is like that too". Other women say that their husband is affectionate enough but he's got more serious problems in other areas (that I wouldn't tolerate, or so I think). This post comes at a time where we've just gone through another wrenching "I need more intimacy" kavetch and he's on his best behavior. So we'll see. But I've largely come to accept that divorce would be too hard on my kids, and me, I fear, for something as esoteric as a low-affection complaint. I'd feel pretty sheepish explaining my reasons to our family and friends. the financial cost and potential lifestyle change would be very hard on us all. And I really do love my husb, very deeply.

So all that said, I don't know if there are many thoroughly happy couples. I do see a lot of unhappy marriages in my current social network, however. I imagine its like the bell curve, tho -- there are some very happy, but most marriages probably fall more in the middle, with complaints mixed with contentment, and then there are the rotten ones where they're both too dependent (or financially stuck) to do anything about it. Thanks for a great post.

Yes, some are happily married (or more accurately, in long term relationships). I'd feel very much like your friend though, and I've never stayed in a relationship that wasn't good. I've left relationships fairly easily all my my life, and been left, and sometimes it's been hard and I've grieved (and sometimes ended up uncontrollably angry), but I've never regretted them ending in the long run. I wasn't looking for the perfect person, I wasn't ending a relo just to find a better one, and I had child bearing over with early and knew my daughter and I could cope just fine by ourselves, I just didn't believe the perfect relo existed.

And I really didn't want to end up one of those who complained about their partner all the time. I'm surrounded by women like that. I get very impatient with them and once in a while let loose with: 'if you don't have anything nice to say about your partner why are you still in a relationship with him/her?' Mind you some have reacted by realising that complaining had become a habit and they didn't feel that badly, and their relationship has improved. So: why are you still there? And it is ok to say for security and the rest doesn't matter, but you really should work out why. A good rinse out of your motivations could be scary - it might end your marriage, but it could be good and give you understanding enough to stay.

Disclaimer: I found a particular woman nearly 14 years ago, and I am happy. There are things that annoy me, but we laugh about them. She never gets the best shady spot when parking the car!!!! I pay her back by refusing to get into the car until the air con has been on for a good five minutes and the car has cooled enough......