Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married - Part of the What I Wish I Knew Before I Got Married Series

I’ve been married for 14 years.  That seems like both forever, and not that long at the same time.

In those 14 years, we’ve been through 4 children, 6 long-distance moves, 6 job changes, 3 years of law school and the starting of a business..

We’ve been through richer and poorer (mostly poorer), sickness and health (mostly health).

We’ve been through childbirth and crying babies and vomiting kids and sleepless nights and money woes and terrible stress.

There have also been happy times...family hikes and late night talks and dates in and vacations and children being born and kids winning trophies.

We’ve fought and made up and fought and made up and fought and made up again and again and again.

We were young when we got married….only 23.  And now we’re closer to 40 than I like to think.

There are a lot of things I wish I had known before I got married.  

One thing I’m glad I didn’t know is the future.  Life happens and thank God we don’t know what is going to happen, because if we did, we would probably run screaming, screaming, screaming far, far away.  When one gets married, they have no idea what the future holds.  It’s a huge leap of faith, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.  

However, there are  some things I wish I had known:

~ I wish I had know that the person you marry will make you SO MAD. SO MAD.

~ And make you so happy at times.

~ Sometimes you are overwhelmed with love.

~ Sometimes you want to strangle them.

~All marriages go through seasons.

~Pregnancy makes one crazy hormonal

~Everyone changes...sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, but everyone changes.

~Life is hard in a way you can never imagine.

~Never look to someone else for your happiness...they will always disappoint you. 

~Marriage isn’t about finding the ‘right’ person or the ‘perfect person’ but finding the person that is right for you.

~Marriages are always composed to two imperfect people. 
I’m not perfect, so I can’t very well expect my spouse to be. 

~Marriage is never 50/50.  Sometimes its 90/10 or 20/80 or 30/70 or 60/40 but it’s never 50/50.   It works best if both people give 100%...but sometimes a person’s 100% is only a 10 and sometimes it’s a 90.

~If you wait out the storm, there usually comes a better day.

~Don’t expect anything from your spouse you’re not willing to do yourself.

As. G.K. Chesterton said “Love means loving the unlovable - or it is no virtue at all.”

Sometimes my spouse will be unlovable.  And sometimes I will be the unlovable one.

The secret is to love anyway.

Marriage is both a huge blessing and a huge cross.  And sometimes it is in the cross, that we find the blessing.   

Don’t run from the cross...that is where the grace is found.

That is where the blessing is found.  

That is where the love is found.  

Amelia Bentrup has a master's degree in reproductive physiology of dairy cows.  She and her husband, Ben, met in graduate school and have been married for 14 years. They have 4 children, ages 13, 10, 7 and  2.  Amelia spends her days homeschooling, chauffeuring kids around, working, mothering, laughing and loving. In her free time, she loves to read, hike, exercise and write. Currently she puts all her creative juices into blogging at  www.onecatholicmama.com.