Marriage is (kind of) an Adjustment: Relationship Advice from an Expert

My friend Alice Cannon took all our pictures for
our wedding. She is incredible!

As my friends have gotten married throughout the years, I’ve noticed that once people get married, they start spouting off all their wisdom. We all know that couple that met on Tinder that will practically force you to download the app, the couple who met on a blind date who insists on setting you up, and the couple who simultaneously bursts into the “You don’t have to be lonely, at Farmer’sOnly.com” jingle. (Actually, I don’t know that last kind of couple, but if you do, I have a few questions. For starters, why is there a talking cow in the commercial? Does the cow come up later in the website? For example, if a guy messages a wedding proposal to a girl he just met, does an animated cow come across the computer screen saying, “You’re MOOOOving too fast?” Just curious.)   Since I’ve been married, lots of people have been begging me to share my incredibly insightful relationship advice. (Okay, actually no one has done this. However, my grandpa did email me and ask me if I was ever going to blog again. So, yeah, the public needs me.) It's been said that if you spend 10,000 hours working on something, you're an expert in that certain field. I have been in a relationship with my husband for over 10,000 hours, so now I'm an expert, right? Luckily I have ignored everyone saying no and compiled a list of advice anyway. 

 Don’t be yourself: When I was young, my mom was always good at reminding me to be myself. “Your hair looks great just the way it is,” she would say. “Don’t do what all your friends are doing if you don’t want to do it.” Apparently that phrase doesn’t really cut it when you’re in a Young Single Adults ward. If I were to “be myself”, instead of attending millions of those “mingling” activities, I would be creating a personal igloo from my pillows and blankets and rewatching a season of Parks and Rec. Regardless, at the beginning of a new semester my roommate, Emmie, and I would usually go to at least one or two ward activities to meet the new guys in the ward. (The word “meet” here means we would stand next to them in the buffet line and actually not speak with them at all.) Miraculously, a ward activity is where I met my husband, Tyler.

Show interest: This is one of the basics as you’re starting to date someone. I showed interest in Tyler by not texting him back for 4 hours at a time. This obviously worked like a charm, because we’re married. (Is anyone else reading this and wondering how I got married? Me, too.)

Have 12 year olds bring up topics that you’re too afraid to: After dating Tyler for awhile, I started seriously thinking about marrying him. Of course I didn’t bring this up, because it was completely terrifying. I’m not sure how long I would’ve waited to bring it up, but due to my incredible awkwardness a fair estimate is approximately 60 years. Anyway, I started dating Tyler during my first year of teaching. My students were incredibly excited of the idea that I wasn’t going to turn into an old cat lady (one of my students said she was actually really surprised) and really wanted to meet him. I promised that he would come visit them on the last day of school and they could ask him questions. After some of the generic, “What’s your favorite sports team?” or “Do you like Donald Trump?” questions were asked, one boy raised his hand and asked, “Have you ever thought about marrying Miss Hardy and having a family with her?” During this moment my emotions ranged from passing out, to failing this student from 6th grade, to turning to Tyler and saying, “Actually, that’s a pretty good question.” But I interrupted before he could even speak, calling the nice little Q&A session to a close.

If you’re taking your boyfriend to meet your parents, help him be less nervous by doing something stupid yourself: For example, I got pulled over for speeding on my way to taking Tyler home to Rexburg over the 4th of July. My wails of, “I can’t be pulled over! I vote EVERY YEAR! EVEN IN THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS!” was somehow drowned out by the wails of the police siren.

Don’t actually plan your wedding: This is a good task to pawn on someone else. Why figure out how many invitations you need to order when you can turn it into a math problem for your 5th grade class instead?

Rent an apartment that’s smarter than you: After we got married, Tyler and I moved into an apartment where you can control parts of the apartment through your phone. I can only assume this invention was made for one reason, and one reason only: pure amusement. Upon moving in, my new favorite past time became turning on and off the kitchen lights when Tyler was there, and I was in the other room.

Communication is key: Some people emphasize communication to prevent disagreements, but I say this because during our first week of marriage we both went to the grocery store on the same day without telling each other and ended up with 6 jugs of milk in the fridge.

Marriage is (kind of) an adjustment: Before getting married, I had people tell me over and over that I was going to have to make a huge adjustment in my life. After 6 months, I’ve noted that the largest adjustment I’ve had to make is that I no longer eat popcorn for 70% of my dinners. (But really we have dinner, and I still save room for popcorn later in the evening. So essentially the actual dinner is an appetizer, and the popcorn is my main course. Life continues as planned.)

Be prepared to answer a lot of questions: After we got engaged, people had a lot of questions. Did you get your wedding dress? What are your colors? Do you actually teach school anymore, or do you make your students listen to your engagement story on repeat all day? Once I got married, the question was mainly the same: “How’s married life?” My usual answer is “great!” but that is a serious understatement. Being married to Tyler is like walking outside and realizing it’s raining Cafe Rio burritos, and then finding out that’s the worst thing that’s going to happen during the day.

Looks like the 4 hour wait period while texting truly did the trick.