I think one of the hardest things about marriage is the fact that 2 people must somehow be able to co-exist forever. It was hard enough living with roommates because roommates all have different standards of aspects of life: cleanliness, finances, noise, personal space, etc. Living with roommates gets tough bc having different standards for life can make your co-existence filled with friction. That's why eventually people choose to live on their own because it's so much easier to be alone than with someone else.
But when you get married, you're not only living with this person, but you're stuck with this person with no end in sight. Now, don't get me wrong - I love marriage. But when you're making friction, it can feel like there's no end in sight.
Sy and I have different standards for certain parts of our lives. And lately, I've really been struggling with how you reconcile those differences. How do you live with someone who believes in something that you just don't believe in? I'll give a harmless example:
Let's say that a wife loves golf. She spends money to go golfing at the range; she spends hours away from her husband and family playing golf. The husband thinks that golf is not a good sport due to its high cost in money and time, and would prefer if the wife were to quit. What do you do? The wife enjoys golf - do you take it away from her? Or do you tell the husband to ignore it for her happiness - even though it makes him unhappy?
There's nothing wrong with golf inherently - it's not an evil sport. and yet, 2 people have different standards of what is an acceptable sport or not. There are pros and cons to both. What are you to do?
And this is where marriage gets tricky. No 2 people are ever going to be 100% in sync with each other on everything. So then what do you when you reach this point? What do you do if these differences are actually major passion points in their lives? How do you reconcile such deep differences?
This is where I am. I don't know what you're supposed to do. What would Jesus do in this situation? I have no idea. I really wish I knew.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
Happy Anniversary To Us!
Sy and I recently celebrated our 1 year anniversary! It's shocking how fast a year has gone by. Wedding planning memories still feel super vivid to me, and yet, an entire year of 4 seasons has come and gone. I still feel like we ought to be considered newlyweds, because we certainly don't feel like seasoned veterans just yet.
In the weeks leading up to our anniversary, I was pretty busy planning our trip to Korea and also our trip to Seattle. And me, being the crazy-planner that I am, also was trying to plan our actual anniversary celebration as well. And it really got me reflecting about our first year of marriage. Questions like, did we have a good first year? what did we get better at? where did we fall short? what can we do better? how far have we come? kept creeping into my mind any time I had a spare quiet moment.
Before we got married, I was pretty nervous. I had been thoroughly warned that the first year of marriage is the hardest. And while I knew couples who breezed through their first year, I certainly knew plenty who had a hard time. I had feared that we would land on the unlucky side, and had mentally braced myself for it. To be honest, our first 3 months of marriage were hard. By the time we came back from our honeymoon, we were thrust into the holiday season, and neither of us had foresaw how chaotic and stressful it would be to manage 2 very needy families. We ended up fighting a lot and it freaked me out a lot. You hear about phrases like "the honeymoon phase" and it scared me that we could fight so much in what should be our honeymoon phase. Did we make a mistake? Should we not have gotten married? Those were terrifying questions to have to answer.
But time kept moving on, and we somehow managed to survive that storm. We came out of it beaten and tired, but alive. Perhaps this was part of how we were able to rise above it. I think we just got tired of fighting so much, and wanted some peace and quiet and chose to let some things slide, or figured out how to prevent certain arguments. And things got better. Perhaps that is what marriage and relationships are like. You start off full of energy, ready to change the world and your spouse, and then you realize it's too hard. Let me work on the smaller stuff and get better success rates this way. And then all of a sudden, you look back, and you have all these months of happy memories piled up to land on when you get knocked down from a fight. And when you fall down, it doesn't feel so bad.
I'm really proud of our first year. Sy and I are two very different people. We think so differently and react so opposite-ly that it could have been a much harder year. But at the end of the day, I always knew he loved me like crazy, and having that nugget to hold on to gave me strength to keep pushing through. When I think back on our first year, I remember so many happy memories. It really was a good year.
So, in true Mia fashion - I made some Year 2 Marriage Resolutions to make our 2nd year better - not just for us, but also for myself. I want to be a better wife, and I want to be a better "helper" that God has called me to be.
1. I will cook us more dinner.
I'm not saying I want to go back to the '50s and become an apron-donning stay at home mom. But I think there is something valued at being a mom who's cooking the whole family loves. But how can I become that kind of mom if I'm always ordering pizza and thai bc I'm too lazy to cook? So, it's time that I start practicing cooking on a more regular basis, save us some money, eat healthier home-cooked meals, and make my husband happy!
2. I will pray for Sy more.
I'm ashamed to say that I prayed for him less this year than I did when we were dating. I spent so much precious prayer-real estate on things that I wanted selfishly, that I just stopped praying for him. But no more! I will be his prayer-warrior wife and always have him covered in prayer as the head of our household.
3. I will work on reviving my own spiritual life as a wife.
It's funny. I don't think I fell away from God, but I know that God stopped being a priority somehow. I was so focused all year on making sure we had a happy marriage that I figured God would be okay with this. But in recent months, I've noticed a feeling of longing for the past. I had wondered if it was that I missed being single, but I've realized that it's that I miss feeling intimate with God. I associate my single days with my best times with God. So I've decided that in year 2 of marriage, I will prioritize God AND my marriage. I know what it looks like to be single and have a great relationship with God. But I'm not so sure what it looks like to be married and have a great relationship with God. It'll be a big learning curve, but I'm ready.
I hope my readers out there will pray for me and Sy, and will also encourage me to stick to these marriage resolutions throughout the next year. I'm hoping it's gonna be a really wonderful year full of more blessings than I can imagine!
In the weeks leading up to our anniversary, I was pretty busy planning our trip to Korea and also our trip to Seattle. And me, being the crazy-planner that I am, also was trying to plan our actual anniversary celebration as well. And it really got me reflecting about our first year of marriage. Questions like, did we have a good first year? what did we get better at? where did we fall short? what can we do better? how far have we come? kept creeping into my mind any time I had a spare quiet moment.
Before we got married, I was pretty nervous. I had been thoroughly warned that the first year of marriage is the hardest. And while I knew couples who breezed through their first year, I certainly knew plenty who had a hard time. I had feared that we would land on the unlucky side, and had mentally braced myself for it. To be honest, our first 3 months of marriage were hard. By the time we came back from our honeymoon, we were thrust into the holiday season, and neither of us had foresaw how chaotic and stressful it would be to manage 2 very needy families. We ended up fighting a lot and it freaked me out a lot. You hear about phrases like "the honeymoon phase" and it scared me that we could fight so much in what should be our honeymoon phase. Did we make a mistake? Should we not have gotten married? Those were terrifying questions to have to answer.
But time kept moving on, and we somehow managed to survive that storm. We came out of it beaten and tired, but alive. Perhaps this was part of how we were able to rise above it. I think we just got tired of fighting so much, and wanted some peace and quiet and chose to let some things slide, or figured out how to prevent certain arguments. And things got better. Perhaps that is what marriage and relationships are like. You start off full of energy, ready to change the world and your spouse, and then you realize it's too hard. Let me work on the smaller stuff and get better success rates this way. And then all of a sudden, you look back, and you have all these months of happy memories piled up to land on when you get knocked down from a fight. And when you fall down, it doesn't feel so bad.
I'm really proud of our first year. Sy and I are two very different people. We think so differently and react so opposite-ly that it could have been a much harder year. But at the end of the day, I always knew he loved me like crazy, and having that nugget to hold on to gave me strength to keep pushing through. When I think back on our first year, I remember so many happy memories. It really was a good year.
So, in true Mia fashion - I made some Year 2 Marriage Resolutions to make our 2nd year better - not just for us, but also for myself. I want to be a better wife, and I want to be a better "helper" that God has called me to be.
1. I will cook us more dinner.
I'm not saying I want to go back to the '50s and become an apron-donning stay at home mom. But I think there is something valued at being a mom who's cooking the whole family loves. But how can I become that kind of mom if I'm always ordering pizza and thai bc I'm too lazy to cook? So, it's time that I start practicing cooking on a more regular basis, save us some money, eat healthier home-cooked meals, and make my husband happy!
2. I will pray for Sy more.
I'm ashamed to say that I prayed for him less this year than I did when we were dating. I spent so much precious prayer-real estate on things that I wanted selfishly, that I just stopped praying for him. But no more! I will be his prayer-warrior wife and always have him covered in prayer as the head of our household.
3. I will work on reviving my own spiritual life as a wife.
It's funny. I don't think I fell away from God, but I know that God stopped being a priority somehow. I was so focused all year on making sure we had a happy marriage that I figured God would be okay with this. But in recent months, I've noticed a feeling of longing for the past. I had wondered if it was that I missed being single, but I've realized that it's that I miss feeling intimate with God. I associate my single days with my best times with God. So I've decided that in year 2 of marriage, I will prioritize God AND my marriage. I know what it looks like to be single and have a great relationship with God. But I'm not so sure what it looks like to be married and have a great relationship with God. It'll be a big learning curve, but I'm ready.
I hope my readers out there will pray for me and Sy, and will also encourage me to stick to these marriage resolutions throughout the next year. I'm hoping it's gonna be a really wonderful year full of more blessings than I can imagine!
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