Do Married People Even Like Eachother?

Are y’all ok?

Here is a list of things I have heard during sermons/Christian courses about marriage, the traditional response to which is to have a chuckle, and then accept it as a tried and true aphorism:

“Marriage is designed to kill you.”

“I haven’t thought about divorce, but I’ve thought about murder.”

That scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the mom and aunt are trying to trick the dad into thinking it’s his idea for Toula to go to college, lauded as a humorous but allegedly accurate example of biblical wifely submission. Hilarious as this entire excellent movie is, if manipulating your man into doing your will is the right thing to do, I’m gonna have to be a sinner.

-That awful “It’s Not About the Nail” video

At a certain point one begins to think it’s better to just cut one’s losses and become a nun.

What are y’all really trying to say to us? I think a lot of older married couples are afraid the youth are over-romanticizing marriage and relationships and because of this, maybe they over-emphasize the negatives of the arrangement. But after spending my teen years gobbling up their wisdom, now as a disillusioned 22 year old (lol so dramatic), I’m left with nothing but a collection of yuk yuk yuks about how irritating and impossible to communicate with the opposite sex is, MAYBE tempered with a vague “but it is SO worth it”. And what is “it”? Is it *whispers* the sex? (It’s probably not).

I think the thing that irks me in these marriage talks is the broad generalizations about the genders. Men hate talking, especially about their feelings. Women never shut up, especially about their feelings. Women are mysterious and impossible to please, because even they themselves don’t really know what they want, whereas men, the poor simple creatures, cannot possibly understand the witchy wiles of their wives, and are contented with a little food and sex.

Having met around 3 men in the last 6 years, I do not consider myself qualified to dispute these claims. But if they are true, then what I am hearing from the mentor figures in my life is that if I want to get married, I am expected to saddle up for eternity with someone who will never truly understand me. And who will only try to understand me out of moral obligation, or because they heard at the Strong Lumberjacks for Christ men’s conference that being nice to your wife will turn her on and you’ll get some. Is that unfair? I hope it is, I don’t want it to be true.

I know I’m being really dramatic here, and only looking at a fraction of the story. But I am sifting through the sentiments that have been trickled down to me as a raised-in-church 21st century gal, and while there are other, more happy sentiments about marriage that go along with this, I think this one is problematic enough that it’s worth being held up to the light and examined to see how it looks on its own. I’m willing for it to be an issue of bad communication versus bad advice, but I sense this dynamic of church folks clinging desperately to gender stereotypes for fear of agreeing with a liberal, rather than providing the life skills all humans needs to be functional and capable in any relationship. If men really do naturally have less emotional intelligence, and the men of the past didn’t get to develop theirs because John Wayne would never have done such a thing, maybe look at teaching the men of tomorrow how to listen to and access their emotions. Instead of allowing us women to continue being an enigma, tell us it’s not cute to not state what we need and then get passive aggressive when a mere mortal can’t read our mind. I heard of a Marriage Talker Person who told husbands to gauge how long after having a coffee on a road trip their wife might need a wee, and then pretend they themselves had to go to the bathroom because their wife wouldn’t ask.

???

Like I get that they were probably trying to tell men to be thoughtful but ???!?!!?

If you can’t tell a person who’s seen you naked that you need to pee you don’t get to get mad at them when you’re bustin at the seams. You are an adult and you made your choice.

Maybe y’all are teaching these life skills to the youths up in the mega churches, I can’t speak to that. All I know is I got a lot of weird marriage advice growing up and I’m here to whine about it. I don’t know what I want (oh no, look at me fulfilling a gender stereotype). Maybe just for someone to tell me that actually, men are capable of having emotional depth and putting the toilet seat down, but perhaps that is too much to ask. And I’ll probably be fine. I’ve pretty much decided to ignore 90% of what the church taught me and just model any future relationships after the way Ben and Leslie treat each other on Parks & Recreation. It seems more Christ-like, but what do I know?