I Dream of We: I’m Not Ready for Marriage

As most of you know I moved back to Maryland and started a new job this past August. During my first couple of weeks at the job, I was sent an email to sign up for the Employee Rewards Program. I was excited to see all of the free stuff and discounts I qualified for! I clicked the link in the email only to be redirected to the employee education site about phishing and email scams! It was a test and I fell for it! This was the same way I felt only weeks after getting engaged. Getting married was a scam and I fell for it!

Society paints marriage as some magical happy loving thing. Weddings have become massive parties with through the roof costs. It’s easy to get bated into it without really being ready. While you may never be “ready”, some early realizations can give you a better understanding of what you are walking into. These were some of the things I wasn’t prepared for:

Exposed

Marriage doesn’t change anything it only amplifies what’s already there. When I got engaged, I was not prepared to come face to face with my flaws. A book called Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, says “What marriage has done for me is hold up a mirror to my sin…” I had to take a good look into the depths of my selfishness. This was the hardest part. You have to make a decision to either continue being that way and suffer or grow. I chose growth, which is a journey that I continue on every day.

Service

When you are single, you look for someone who can bring something to the table. What can he do for me? Are his finances in order? Does he have a good job? Once he’s made it through this vetting process, we often still have a mindset of what can he do for me. I realized during my engagement that marriage has more to do with me finding ways to serve my future husband better, rather than him serving me. So I had to transform my mentality from what he can do for me to what can I do for him?

Forgiveness

If you struggle to forgive, don’t get married! Well, at least consider seeing a counselor or other professional to work on forgiveness. The best relationships require a lot of it! I wasn’t prepared for the amount of forgiveness that my relationship would require even for the little things. I also realized that forgiveness is a process that begins with the choice to forgive.

Love

I still believe in love. My fiancé and I have a great love story that’s too long to tell for the purposes of this blog. People get married for many reasons but the foundation of my reasoning will always be love. However, love is also glamourized. The process of becoming one with my fiancé has made me realize that love most of the time isn’t a feeling…it’s a choice. I’ll never forget that one time my fiancé and I were having a heated discussion about something in the car on our way home (which I can’t even remember what it was about!) We were both frustrated. He passes the turn for my house and I figured he was distracted from the discussion. I said to him sharply, “Did you mean to pass my street?”. He looked at me and said, “yes I’m going to go put gas in your car so you don’t have to worry about it in the morning” My heart melted because even though we were disagreeing and he was frustrated with me. He chose to love instead! He didn’t need me to show HIM love either to give ME love. Why is that? Our #1 source of love will always be God’s love exclusively. Only Christ can make us happy. Because Christ loved us, we can love others. My fulfillment from love doesn’t come from my fiancé but comes from being loved by God. Even when he showers me in it, it just feels like an extra added bonus! So to be married ultimately, you need to have an understanding that above all you are loved by God. When I got engaged, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This process has not only helped me grow closer to my future husband but to Christ as well.