7 years ago today...

[aryanhwy]

...at the wedding of a friend, the DJ called for all the couples to come out to the dance floor, and Joel asked me if I wanted to dance. I seized the opportunity and all of my courage and asked him, "So, are we a couple??" and his answer was, "Well, we could be", and we have been ever since. :)

6 years ago today...
...Joel took me out to dinner and afterwards we walked down to the lock at Tenney park. Sitting with me on his lap, on a bench overlooking the rocks and the lake, he asked me to marry him. I thought he was joking and so I burst out laughing. He had to say, "No, really, will you marry me?" before I realized he was serious and said yes.

I've been thinking a lot about "for better and for worse" lately. We used traditional (but not too traditional; I wasn't going to promise to obey him, and he didn't care to have me promise to be "buxom in bed" as one 18th C version ran) vows at our wedding, and while neither of us have any clear recollection of what precisely we promised (someday I'll have to watch the wedding video and find out! But at least we both don't remember that part of the ceremony that clearly, so neither of us can hold it against the other!), I'm pretty sure that it had that "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better, for worse" part in it.

I don't know about others, but when I thought about wedding vows, somehow, I'd never gotten too much further past the first two pairs, feeling that the last pair was somehow redundant. After all, what could be better than "richer and in health" and what could be worse than "poorer and in sickness"? Something I've learned after 5 years of marriage is more precisely just what "for better and for worse" means. "Better" is when your husband is the one person who can always make you laugh, no matter how grumpy and curmudgeonly you're feeling, the one person who can always make you believe that "It will be OK" when he says it will be OK. "Better" is having a conversation where neither person completes a sentence because there's no need to. So what about "worse"? One way that "worse" differs from "poorer and in sickness" is that ill health and lack of money are, in a sense, external things. They may not always be things that you can do anything about, but they are something apart from the marriage and the members of the marriage towards which anger, frustration, and ire can be directed. "Worse" is something more internal. It's when your partner is sad and frustrated and depressed and there is nothing you can do about it, and what's even worse about "worse" is that the one person that you want to be able to turn to for comfort and support is the person who is the cause of your need for comfort and support. That is worse.

In a way, though, figuring this out has helped some -- cause when times like that come around, I can tell myself "See that? That's 'worse'. I signed up for that. It's all part of the package. This is just one part of the promise that I made. And don't forget, it's not always 'worse'. The 'better' still outweighs the 'worse'."

Comments

[sue-n-julia.livejournal.com]

While I haven't made the vows (because the US is a homophobic, parochial nation), I will say that getting through grad school is both for better and for worse.

1. For worse because the period of writing a thesis or dissertation is all-consuming for the one writing and there seems to be no room for you. For worse because during the writing, doubts crop up and wear the writer down.


2. For better because the moment in which the writer receives the degree is one of the most exhilarating, fulfilling moments of her life. For better because without your support, your sweetie would have had a much harder road to slog.

S

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Part of me never expected grad school to be as difficult as it was, because it was always part of my life plan. I figured it would be the unexpected that would be difficult to cope with, and certainly the "ordeals" that I've faced in my married life aren't at all as bad, in my opinion, as some that my parents have faced with aplomb. But it has helped, through this last 7 months or so, knowing that if things continue as they are, come December, we'll both be done. And that will definitely be Better.

[baronsnorri.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, Dear Sister--All of the Best, to both of you, together!! : )

A Distant Snorri.