What I Didn't Know 5 Years Ago....

As things would go, I drew the marriage straw in our teaching rotation this fall. With the other 2 teachers with 10 and 25 years of marriage under their belt, I felt (and still do feel) inadequate to give the lesson this Thurs. The Lord is faithful though and while I may not have all the practical experience, I have His word, His guidebook to do my teaching from. We celebrate our 5th anniversary in 12 days and I wish I had known some of this...and in some ways, I'm glad I didn't know it.

As I was beginning my preparation, I sent an email out to a group of people - older, younger, married a long time, married a few months to see how they would answer the question:
What do you wish you had known going into marriage. I thought everyone might enjoy the answers I got back. I have categorized them and given some thoughts from various people - cut and pasted straight from the emails. My lesson will be on what do we do with what we didn't know - how do we go about making a lasting marriage when the moonlight and romance turns into dirty socks and paying bills!

The Happily Ever After Takes A lot of Work
I don't know if I would have paid any attention, but I wish someone would have mentioned how marriage is hard work and not for the faint of heart. I wish someone could have made me realize that a successful marriage is more about obedience to God's commands, personal sacrifice, & unselfishness than about ooey gooey heart pounding love & excitement. I wish I had known that there would be times when I hated my spouse, when I wanted to bail, and I couldn't stand to be under the same roof with him. .

Not unlike having children, the romantic ideal of what it will be like dies a pretty quick death. Who among us hasn't been barfed on by a baby, or helped a spouse thru a bad bout of illness like the stomach flu? Or tried to move to a different house with a husband & children? That brings out the worst. The vows we took before God and our loved ones really are a snapshot of what's to come: sickness & health, riches & times of need, good times & bad. It's all worth it, though. Stay the course, fight the good fight, and enjoy hearing the Father say, "Well done, good and faithful servant", when our time on Earth is finished!!!

When you get married, you are not just marrying one person, but an entire family.

Your Relationships with Family and Friends Changes

Males and Females Really are Different
I think one of the best pieces of advice I got was that the thing that will annoy you the most about your spouse is the thing that makes them the most MALE. So often I am not mad at my husband, I am mad at the entire male species. Makes me cut him some slack.

Choose Battles Wisely
I wish someone had told me to choose my battles. And to never, ever call him and gripe at him when he is at work.

Advice I might give would be: don't sweat the small stuff. For me the small stuff has been: household organization, how fast chores get done, our agenda for the weekend, little things about child rearing, etc. I think after the marriage Bible study last year, I started saying "Whatever you'd like" about these small issues and questions. It has made a world of difference. Don't get me wrong...I still have strong opinions about MANY issues, but on things that really don't matter, I am learning to yield some control.

Manage your expectations - Marriage does not make you happy
Before the wedding, I really thought that my life would be "perfect" once I found the right man and got married. After being single for so long, I envisioned a perfect and complete life after I said "I do." Of course, I don't need to tell you that's not the way it works. In fact, problems can become amplified because now you're living with someone and sharing your daily struggles with them. So I wish someone would have told me that marriage doesn't really solve your problems or make your life feel "perfect." On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have believed them.

Educate Yourself About Intimacy
It's more than just having sex...and takes some work too:) God's design for intimacy is very different from what we learn from our culture.

Plan for Your Future Now
Building a family starts when you get married, not when your first child is born. Use the time between marriage and babies to build a solid foundation.Spend money when you get married as if you are already a stay at home mom. It will make the transition much easier. Begin saving for retirement after the honeymoon.


The Person I married was not the same guy I dated.
That the person I was dating wasn't the same guy I married!

Oddly enough, the most helpful story I heard before I was married were from a Christian co-worker, then happily married and expecting her third child. Sometime right after her honeymoon (weeks of marrying the fellow), she thought to herself “I’ve made a terrible mistake!” It was good to remember esp in the beginning when I realized that that my sweet
husband wasn’t a knight in shining armor, but a flawed human like me!

The person I married was not the same guy I dated….yet in some ways he was.
I wish that my pastor had talked to us more about being equally yoked. I assumed he would go to church with me b/c that is what you did when you were married, even though he never went with me when we were dating.
Marriage magnifies those things that drove me nuts before we got married; how foolish was I to think they would either change or go away.

I’m not the same person I thought I was – I am SELFISH!

I also wish I would have known marriage, like no other earthly relationship, would expose my own sin nature, nastiness, and abject need for God in my life. How incredible is it that God hand picked a man that sees me at my worst (physically, emotionally, spiritually) who still loves and puts up with me? Not an easy task. So humbling

No one ever told me to learn the word grace now.
You need to know that there’s no room for selfishness and there needs to be a lot kindness. Both come from your heart and are sometimes only available through the grace of God


God Uses Marriage to Change You
Nothing has made me grow up like marriage. Love changes over time. It evolves. It gets a lot richer, deeper, more meaningful. On this side of heaven, navigating life can feel like a battle, but marriage is God's way of putting someone next to us in the trenches. What a blessing.
God wants us to be content more than he wants to be happy.

You see, the Lord is more concerned with our sanctification rather than our satisfaction. We walk in expecting someone else to fill the needs that the Lord alone is meant to fill. We look for the happily ever after that is moonlight and romance rather than everyday routine of dirty toilets and dirty socks. Somewhere in all of this, God is looking to continue to conform us to the image of His son. As Gary Thomas puts it, what if Marriage is about our holiness rather than our happiness?

To Be Continued...