Marriage

Oh my! It's the "M" word! Let me just clear something up real fast: I am a 19 year old girl with an entire life ahead of me, I am not planning on getting married soon. But as a 19 year old, I have some older friends and marriage is this huge thing that is always surrounding me. People my age are going off and getting married. My older brothers and sisters talk about marriage (Getting married, engaged, divorced, etc.). I will admit, I'm already planning my FUTURE (did you catch the future part?) wedding. Among my mormon friends they are already stressing, in their mid twenties may I add, about getting to old to get married. And then there's always the weird stuff, like guys telling me why they would be good dads. I can't help it, when a guy is telling me why he'd be a good dad, it translates in my mind as "I want to have babies with you". Sorry, can't help it! Whether that's their intention or not.

 (On an unrelated note: I wonder how many lives in Africa were affected to make that monstrous thing?)

So yeah, marriage is this HUGE thing! And I have a couple of thoughts I'd like the share on the subject . . .

First of all! Pinterest. It's a wonderful place. I love it. However, the wedding section drives me insane. Partly because some of those "original" wedding ideas are no longer original if they are crawling all over the internet; everyone is going to have the same wedding with a few variations. But also because in the same wedding section, there are so many quotes and lists of what your man needs to be and what he needs to do before you marry him (i.e; hire a secret camera man to photograph your engagement, ask your dad and mom for your hand, be your best friend, etc.). Some of it is good advice, some of it is silly and not important and very unnecessary. My question is: where is all the stuff telling you who you need to be and what you need to do before you go off and get hitched? Where's that list? Cause I haven't found it. (I'm assuming the person reading this is a girl . . . bad assumption?)

I'm not at all saying we shouldn't keep our standards high for the men we marry, I simply want to know what the ladies are doing to deserve these great guys they are expecting. What are they doing?! We get what we are. You need to be amazing before you get something amazing.

I've come up with two main reasons I believe marriages fail.

In Psychology there is something called projection (look it up!). It is when we don't like something about ourselves, mostly subconsciously, but we see it in someone else. We project our flaws onto other people and it bothers us immensely (I've written about it on this blog under 'why hate taylor swift?'). This disliking of another person stems from not liking yourself; if you liked that part of yourself it wouldn't bother you coming from another person. People who don't like other people don't like them because they don't like themselves. This is the main reason relationships fail. It's the reason marriages fail. We blame others and tell them they need to change, when truthfully, we need to change just as much, if not more, than they do.

The second reason marriages fail is jealousy. Jealousy also stems from an insecurity within yourself. Either you aren't satisfied with who you are or what you have and you get jealous. Or you are not sure that you are worth not cheating on, which also leads to jealousy. Jealousy is the fear that someone else has something you feel you should have but don't.

My point is, relationships fail because of the individual. To be blunt, it is your fault. Yeah, the person you were with might be screwed up, but so are you. We get what we are. If you need to, disconnect from yourself for a moment and think about other people you know, your friends or your family, and their relationships and ask yourself if you believe this applies to them.If it applies to them, it applies to you too. It's a law of nature, what goes around comes around. We end up with people who are similar to us.

Now this is my philosophy: I'd like to share a dream of mine. I want to finish up college, have spectacular grades and a psych degree. I want to get a nice job, move into an apartment by myself, have a beautiful dog, and I want to be comfortably poor. I want to be alone. I will see people at work and have friends on the weekends. But ultimately I want to be completely alone. Just me and the dog. I want to go on walks alone. I want to eat alone. I want to read alone. I want to cry because I am alone. Because at the end of the day, you're alone anyways. And you always will be.

I've been called a cynic. But really, recognizing this makes you a much happier person! I want to be alone so I can learn to truly and completely love myself for exactly who I am. I want to be alone and be happy to be alone. I want this so bad that it makes if difficult for me to comprehend why anyone would want to get married before they are twenty five. If you'll recall my two reasons for failing relationships: projection and jealousy. With that logic it proves that it is simply impossible  to love anyone fully until you love yourself fully.

Divorce rate is up. We know this. And you can argue that it just went up because divorce became more acceptable and whatever, that's not the point. The point is marriage is failing. And it's failing because people are rushing into it. We are so afraid to be alone. But why? I'd rather be alone for a few years and love myself, then  find another person who truly loves himself, so we can love ourselves and each other together. Doesn't that just sound so much better than getting married and being with two people you don't really know or love (you and your spouse) then maybe even realize you'd rather be alone anyways (aka divorce)?

We expect certain things to happen in our lives. It might be the media or some innate human aspect that makes us want someone to come and love us completely, then through their love we can learn to love ourselves. This is not a reality. Because someone who would be able to love you completely would have to love themselves completely first, and in that case they would find someone similar to them, not some insecure whiner who feeds off of other people's opinions. Learn to love yourself. Be alone. Learn to love being alone. Don't settle.

I'm a nineteen year old sophomore in college with a lot of ideas and opinions. I am aware that I have very little credibility. But I have seen and experienced the world. I'm an observer. I wouldn't be spending my Saturday afternoon writing this down if I didn't believe it. 41% of marriages ended in divorce last year in the US. That's only first marriages, it's not even considering all the other years or all the people who stay together for the kids. If I were to leave you with a bit of advice it would be to not get married unless you can look at yourself and say with 100% confidence that you love yourself for who you are. You love yourself with all of your imperfections that you are working on and you are ready to love another person in the same way. Exactly the way they are. If you're already married then do this!

This is my dream. This is what I know is right for me. You might be an exception; you might already love yourself and not need time alone. But chances are, and statistics back me up, you are not the exception. I know that I'm not an exception. I depend on people a lot to feel good about myself. But I don't want that. So I'm changing it. My plan is to be able to love myself in the most complete way possible and to always continue working on being a better version of myself.  I am not expecting perfection. I know I have flaws and I know the person I marry will have flaws. That's alright. I'm not saying we need to silently submit to our flaws. The point of life is to become better. The person I marry will help me do that because they will love me.

I look forward to my marriage. I know it will be awesome. Because I will know I'm awesome, and he will know he's awesome, and together we will be as awesome as they come.