Tag Archives: marriage

Apr11

On marriage: more than ‘just’ a piece of paper

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On marriage: more than ‘just’ a piece of paper

**The fourth in my mini-series on marriage. I am exploring why I want it (or trying to), what goes into a successful marriage, and snippets of conversations M and I have had on this very topic**

Marriage is more than ‘just’ a piece of paper.

For those of you that didn’t know me when I was married, for me to say this now and truly believe it…telling.

Because when I got married, I don’t think I truly believed in marriage and what it stands for. I saw it more as a formality, as the next ‘logical’ step in our (then) 7-year relationship. I pish-poshed the rituals of the engagement party, bridal shower, the whole nine yards wedding. I got married with none of my family or friends nearby. When we said our vows overlooking the waters of Kauai, I distinctly remember thinking ‘I should be more emotional. I should be crying. Or something. This should feel different. And powerful. And ‘us.’ But instead? It felt lonely (as I’ve said before). And it did feel like ‘just’ a piece of paper afterwards. We were happy, but we weren’t any *more* happy because we were married (not that I think that it’s like a light switch, suddenly your now-marriage is perfect puppies and rainbows, but there is something to be said for the ‘honeymoon period’ for a reason, right?!).

As these words flow from my fingertips…I am actually surprised at what I’m revealing. And the revelations I am uncovering through this post and this series, overall. I think my disbelief in marriage and what it stands for was one of several underlying reasons why our marriage ultimately failed. Because my ex-husband had this very same view…marriage is ‘just’ a piece of paper.

But now? I think in order for marriage to succeed, both have to believe that there is a reason to get married. That it’s not just a ‘logical’ step. That we want to publicly commit to each other (hopefully) for a lifetime. And put in the commitment necessary to make it succeed. Now, I am not saying that I suddenly ‘believe’ in the big white puffy dress fairy tale that so many do as they grow up, but I do know this: if/when M and I marry, we will be surrounded by our close family. Where/when/how/what is still up for debate, but making this commitment with our families there is important to me. For the very first time.

Because, it’s not just a piece of paper anymore. It’s purposeful. It is filled with intent. And it is a commitment I am ready to make. When the time comes.

~~~

For now, this is the end of my ‘on marriage’ series, though there may be more of these down the road…ya know, when the time comes (wink). Writing this series has been an incredibly eye-opening experience for me. Because with each topic that comes to mind, I actually have had no idea what I was going to write, until I wrote it. Free-flowing. Stream of conscious. I urge you…if there is something you are trying to work through, like me, and my thoughts on marriage and what I want it to look like, write it out. It truly makes it all come together.

Mar27

On the topic of marriage.

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On the topic of marriage.

I’ve been debating a new mini-series on my blog. On the topic of marriage. For some reason, lately (as in, the last couple of months), I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage (and this recent engagement of the most lovely couple ever continues to spark my thinking!), . Like, a very lot. Sometimes even daily. I wonder when M will propose…and sometimes even *if* he will propose. I wonder why I have such a pull towards it (lately). I wonder why I’m so stuck on it. And I wonder why I *want* to get married, ideally, in the next year.

Why, why, why?

Why does it matter?

For those of you that really know me…you know weddings and all the ‘stuff’ around it is really not my style. So to be thinking this much about marriage and everything just feels so different for me, anyway. Foreign, almost. And when talking to my sister Jess about it this week, she asked me this question:

“Why do you want to get married…why do you want him to propose this year? Does it really matter?”

And honestly, at first, I was stumped. Speechless. Had no idea what my answer was.

I just…do. I feel as though we both clearly know we are meant for each other, we are so perfectly matched in every possible way, without a shadow of a doubt, he is the man I want to be my husband.  And maybe that’s enough of an answer. Maybe it just means I am ready.

And maybe a part of me feels as though we are just slightly incomplete without being married. One of the biggest things I missed about being married was the completeness of it, the safety, the unity of it. And I no longer feel like we are still learning each other, that we are still ‘getting to know’ we each other wants, in each other, in a marriage, as (future) possible parents, in a life…together. I know exactly what he wants. He knows exactly what I want. And it’s the same damn thing. So what’s stopping us from making it happen? 

And a small part of me feels like it is validation…and this is the one that really confuses me. Last night, for some reason, a wave of worry flooded over me. I wondered if perhaps living with me and seeing my ‘true colors’ had started to drive M away. That seeing that I can be moody, that I am uber picky about tidiness and what I eat etc., were driving him away from me, not towards me. After a long conversation, where M assuaged my fears and told me that he loves me more every day just a little bit more than the day prior (swoon…), I felt the connection and validation again. The validation I was searching for. But. Why do I still feel that getting engaged and married is the validation I really need and want? (and do I need it or do I just want it? And does it matter if I want it more than *need* it?)

(can you see how my mind is going in a zillion directions and just won’t settle?!)

So maybe I need to explore my thoughts on marriage. On why I want it. On what it signifies. On what I want out of it. Because I sure as hell didn’t know what I wanted out of it the first time, when I really dig deep and look at it. I just simply didn’t. And the last thing I’d want to do going into another marriage (if/when <–see, there I go again! doubting!), is to go into it not knowing what I want it to look like.

Love like this may come once
Baby it’s fate like a soul mate
He’s your penguin…

And in the end, you’ll have your best friend.

Jan19

Throwbacks: Selling my home.

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Throwbacks: Selling my home.

I haven’t written a ‘throwbacks’ post in awhile, but was prompted to last night when I came across an email from my old real estate agent. I’ll get back to the significance of that email in a minute, but first, the story of selling my (marital) home.

~~

When I went through my divorce, selling our home was one of the biggest stumbling blocks that stalled the process more than anything and was one of the hardest parts to swallow, because not only was my life being turned completely upside down, my home was soon going to be taken away from me too, leaving me with nothing but a blank slate (in hindsight, of course, having a blank slate and starting fresh elsewhere was the best and fastest way for me to heal, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t an extremely hard decision).

The process itself was completely eye-opening, because navigating the mortgage waters put me in an utter tailspin. I had no idea where to start. I didn’t know if we could even keep the house, if we tried. And tried, we did. Attempted to refinance it so the mortgage might be feasibly affordable for one of us to maintain. Fail. We had an 80/20 mortgage (which mortgage companies now no longer do), which meant 80% on one mortgage and 20% on the other (to avoid PMI), and neither mortgage company was willing to consolidate into the other and neither would refinance since we – surprise, surprise – had little equity in the house since buying it 3 years prior.

Once we realized that there would be no way either of us could afford to keep the house, we shifted towards selling. Another tough pill to swallow, because at the time, I was hell-bent on staying in that house. We’d both put so much time, money and effort into it, and I loved it, from the yard, to the pool, to the home gym I’d created.  Home appraisal came back and when I opened it up, I almost passed out. Since buying in 2005 (now, in 2008), the house had depreciated by almost $100K. $100K. Yup.

What’s next? Short sale. Short sales were, at the time, just becoming more commonplace for all of those people that bought at the height of the market, when prices were high, but interest rates were (relatively) low. It felt like a scarlet letter to me, though, because I always equated short sale homes to beat-up, abandoned homes for some reason. But ours? Was beautiful. Brand new remodeled bathroom to the 9s (for 5 figures, no less. gulp. that would bite us), new roof, floors redone, walls redone, basement floor retiled (it was a finished basement)  and the list goes on. In those 3 years, we’d put about $40,000 into it, upping the loss that would come.  I utterly hated the idea at first, and as I’ve mentioned in prior throwbacks on the end of my marriage, this was one of our biggest fights…to sell, or to try and fight for it. We eventually agreed to sell, no matter how badly it would hurt our credit, no matter how low the price.

And the price…was low. Less than HALF of what we paid, and completely obliterating that $40,000 we’d invested into it, to boot. THAT hurt. THAT was hard to swallow. Especially as the mortgage companies ordered us to pay $12,000 at closing in order for them to wipe the debt clean (where we wouldn’t be taxed on the loss, but our credits would nose-dive). Ouch. And back to the part about the email from my old real estate agent? When we closed on our house, our agent, to his credit, got us a buyer faster than I ever thought possible, but how? He was an investor. Rolled up in his nice shiny Benz, dressed to the 9s. And we were literally handing our home over to him for pennies on the dollar.

That real estate agent is this man…now starring in a show on A&E called ‘Flipping Boston’ (on the left)…he’s profiting from his smarmy ability to short sell homes and flipping them, to boot. I had my reservations that he was tied in to the investor he sold to, and that he would profit, personally, from our short sale, but this confirmed it, to me. Reading that email last night…and my blood boiled. It brought all of those feelings back, the pain, frustration, anger and sadness.

But, then, once I ranted a little bit to M, and to my sisters, I realized something. It wasn’t worth it. Fighting for the house wouldn’t have been worth it for a number of financial reasons, but also? Why would I have wanted to fight for a home that was akin to the shell of my marriage? Why would I want that shell hovering over me day in and out? I wouldn’t. 

And as M hugged me tight, and told me that we will have a bigger, better, and more soundly-invested home in the future…together? All of that anger and frustration melted away…into the most perfect evening together. Everything truly happens for a reason…even if it may not seem like it at the time, it truly does. And this was just another reminder of just that. And I am firmly planted where I am meant to be.

Nov30

Stories that define me: Trust.

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Stories that define me: Trust.

*This is the first in my mini-series on stories of my past that define me. I’ll write these periodically, as the ideas flow. Enjoy.*

Growing up, trust felt innate to me. I trusted my family. I trusted my friends. The one person that I never quite trusted growing up, though? My father.

As I have shared in brief before, my relationship with my dad growing up was rocky almost my entire childhood and much of my adulthood, too. My parents separated when my sisters and I were young but officially divorced when we were 10. He never had any custody of us or, to the best of my recollection, cared to, either. We’d spend time with him from time to time, but he would so often break promises, go against his word, and just be completely awful to us (‘hiding’ his money to avoid child support…to the measly sum of $25/week for three kids, no less…, picking fights with us or my mom and then dissapearing for months at a time, with not a word uttered and no clues to where he was living or what women he was living with, or uh, marrying etc).

So I just never trusted him. Even when we’d be in a good place with him, my sisters and I, and we’d get along, it was usually short-lived and would end in an eruption of anger and hurtful words. And when we’d reunite again, I still never completely trusted him, nor said ‘I love you’ to him, no matter how often he’d say it to me on the phone or in person. It was my coping mechanism, a way to protect myself.

It’s probably the only example I have of my inability to trust someone, especially someone in my family. To this day, even though we are all back to being quite close to my dad (my niece Isabel, as I’ve said, has really united us together, and my dad has really stepped into the grandfather role so well. I am proud of him for that), I won’t say ‘I love you’ to him. Because there’s still that part of me that doesn’t completely trust him. And if I don’t trust enough or let him in enough, he can’t hurt me. Yeah, I’m coping and defending myself against any future hurt by him, but I think I deserve some semblance of self-preservation.

~~

The only other example I have of trust issues is when I got divorced.

…and started dating. 

That thing called trust?

Well, first of all, in the beginning, I trusted too easily. I took their word for it…when they say they’d call, when they say they wanted ‘more’ than just something casual, whatever they would say, I trusted that it was true. Because that’s how I’d always operated. Innate trust.

Obviously, you can see where this is going. Burned. Burned again. Burned some more. To the tune of a one night stand that I call accidental, because I didn’t see it coming and wasn’t expecting it to be just one night, either. (isn’t that always the case, though, incidentally? Most of the time, anyway?).

After that incident, I banished trust from my vocabulary when it came to dating. It was frustrating to question every single word I’d read or hear out of whomever I was on a date with or dating at the time. I wondered if it was a line, if it was an excuse or legit, if they meant what they were saying.

Because I am a firm believer in - mean what you say and say what you mean – yet that is SO hard for so many people to do, isn’t it? Especially in dating.

And then, after many, many, many first date ‘one date wonders,’ dates that fizzled after a few, non-starters (first dates that just sucked, in other words – hehe…remember 10 second guy?!), I met M.

And that thing called trust?

I felt it. Almost immediately. I trusted every word he said, every gesture, everything.

He said what he meant and meant what he said.

And that’s when I knew we were going to go the distance. Truly. When I naturally trusted him. And when that trust was reciprocated…from a self-professed non-truster, no less. A man that had also gotten burned by friends, family, his ex-wife, and women he’d dated too.

We got into this very conversation the other night…about trust. And how hard it is, sometimes, to open up and trust people. And then I asked him how he trusted me so easily and readily.

And he said, he just did. 

Simply put. But so true. Because I did too.

I still do. With all of my heart. 

Trust is a powerful thing. It’s not always innate (nor should it be), it’s not always deserved (nor should it be!) and it’s often elusive.

But when you have it, keep it, honor it, and respect it.

Trust. Is this a hard one for you? Do you have a hard time trusting people? (I hope you enjoyed my first installment…more to come!)

Nov21

To fall in love twice in my lifetime…

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To fall in love twice in my lifetime…

I remarked to M last night as I curled into his arms on the couch, in silence, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, mild breeze drifting through the window…“you know? I feel so blessed to have fallen in love twice already in my life at this age, when so many of my friends haven’t found ‘it’ once yet.”

To fall in love twice in my lifetime already, feels, well, almost unfair, when you really step back and look at it. When there are so many that are still looking, still struggling, still wanting for that feeling. Those that have never felt that feeling, akin to the first sips of wine (as I compared it), that you can’t quite capture and put into words.

And I don’t write this to suggest that I feel guilty, as I have in the past, but just how fortunate I am to have found love, true, deep, long-lasting love so ‘soon’ (in the grand scheme of things, soon!) after my divorce when I know so many that have not.  Because it truly is something I think about quite often. Almost as a reminder not to take for granted what we’ve cultivated and to keep myself in check with that…not to let it stagnate.

And I think back to my ex-husband and the love that we had. It was such immature love. Love that had no context, no perspective, no real strength, other than longevity. I honestly think the ultimate demise in our marriage was that our love never grew and evolved from that immature love that it was built on. It stagnated. It didn’t change. It just…stayed the same. Looking at that picture yesterday was proof of that. I look at myself – my 27 year old self, and I honestly feel like I look like I am 22 or 23, max. I met my ex-husband at the age of 20, and I almost feel as though I never grew from that age, so to speak, and neither did he.

But now? In the year+ that M and I have been together, I see a huge evolution from this time last year to today, for example. We are constantly growing and learning and evolving. In one year, I’d venture to guess we’ve grown more in our relationship and in our love for each other than I did in my entire decade-long relationship and marriage to my ex-husband. That statement is so powerful, to me. In one year…our love has grown more than in a decade-long relationship. 

To me…our love is everlasting.  And feeling so confident about that is probably the best revelation I’ve uncovered in a very long time.