{Listen up Blunt Deliverites. History is being made this very, very instant as I’m about to reveal my very first guest blogger. Remember how I blindsided you awhile back with that minor little announcement about my engagement? Well, there is someone who would like to dispense a lil advice for the Blunt bride-to-be. That someone, is Jen of When Pigs Fly. We have been bosom blogging buddies since time began. She’s far better at everything than I am, and if you don’t give her a big Blunt welcome then you can hold your breath come Christmas card season!}
Let’s see. I’ve been a fan of Brit’s and Blunt Delivery for about two years now. How time flies. It seems like only yesterday I was following her every post. A couple of years on and I feel like I know probably more than I should about her crazy life. The woman is downright funny and inspiring. She has helped me to learn about throwing caution to the wind with my writing and the fact that there’s something to be said for actually living the dream, not just paying lip service to it.
Before I get too sappy and start sounding more than a tad bit like a stalker, time to move on. Just needed to get the tribute out of the way before diving into the meat of this guest post. Yes, you heard right, a guest post. As soon as Brit dropped the bomb on all of us that she was planning on getting married, I began formulating some advice for her in my head. As I can’t keep these types of things to myself, I pleaded/conned her into letting me share them in a post a la Blunt Delivery.
I’ve been married for nearly 17 years. SEVENTEEN YEARS, people. When I see it in print, screaming at me on the page like that, I feel well past my sell by date. In the words of my mother, may she rest in peace, “Getting old sucks.” Yes, it does. To combat the slow decline into an appalling state of suckage, I have remained in an on again off again state of denial. I am the same age as Jennifer Aniston, our birthdays only a day apart. 42 never looked as good as it does on the former Friends star. I like to think I’m not too off the mark. Considering my head still thinks I’m 28, I just use good old Jen as a body barometer. Let’s hope she continues to keep herself well preserved for quite sometime. Otherwise, I shall have to find a new coping strategy.
But, I digress. The real point of me taking up space here is to share my years of wisdom on the marriage front. There are several things to keep in mind when embarking on such a journey with another human being. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Most of them involve empty toilet paper rolls and dirty clothes.
1) Choose your battles – My mother-in-law gave me this sage piece of advice years ago when I got into one of the few truly unhappy discussions with my husband about something we didn’t see eye to eye on. There are times to stand your ground and there are times to let it go. Most of the time, it’s better to just let it go. Your man refuses to remember to put a new toilet roll on the holder or pick up his dirty shirts off the floor, chances are this is not a battle you are going to win over time. Trust, me there will be a multitude of things you do that drive him crazy. Unless its routinely setting the house on fire or clipping your toenails in bed, let’s hope he too decides not to pick a fight.
2) Compromise – This is a corollary to number one. Life is about compromise and whether you like it or not so is marriage. I’m just going to tell you now, unless your soon to be husband is secretly gay, he hates throw pillows. All men hate throw pillows. Do they have to live with throw pillows? If they’re married to a woman, they will. Personally, I’m not a fan of watching Major League Baseball or professional golf on television when I’d rather be soaking up reruns of Modern Family, but I go with it. It’s called compromise and it’s not always fun but it’s necessary.
3) Listen (or at least do a really good job of pretending to listen) – I would like to say that my husband is the only one who does not listen but I would be lying. Multitasking is a fallacy even though we all know women are better at faking it than men. My husband taps away on his phone while simultaneously playing Angry Birds on his iPad all the while “listening” to me inform him that our friends will be picking us up for dinner at 6pm that night. When 5:45 rolls around and I bark at him to change his clothes, he wonders why I never told him what time he needed to be ready. This happens while I am writing at the computer and he reports about something I need to know. It’s annoying, not good for the relationship and it means finding yourself in your own personal episode of Three’s Company with a big misunderstanding and no hugs from two dippy roommates to make you feel better.
4) Keep yourself happy – “You complete me.” This is one of the all time best lines in a movie but, contrary to popular belief, Jerry McGuire is not reality. No one can make you happy. Only you can do that. As soon as you start relying on someone else to fulfill you, you’re in trouble. My husband is the best part of my life but no matter how wonderful he is, he can’t find my way for me. That’s my job.
5) Like the song says, “Tell him that you love him.” – There’s nothing quite like hearing it even though he knows it. That goes for the women too.
There you go. That’s my top five, shot from the hip, list of advice for the soon to be Blunt Delivery bride. There’s nothing earth shattering about it. But, we must be doing something right since my husband and I are still married, very happy and carrying on conversations containing complete sentences with one another.
Like I said before, growing old sucks. Getting old with someone you love makes it all seem just this side of all right. Before you know it, you’ll be seventeen years down the road, deluding yourself into believing you’ve aged nearly as well as some Hollywood A-lister, and hopefully looking back on the happiest years of your life to date spent with your best friend.
Congratulations and all the best!
Jen (not Aniston)
Do you guys have any advice for me?
Let’s see. I’ve been a fan of Brit’s and Blunt Delivery for about two years now. How time flies. It seems like only yesterday I was following her every post. A couple of years on and I feel like I know probably more than I should about her crazy life. The woman is downright funny and inspiring. She has helped me to learn about throwing caution to the wind with my writing and the fact that there’s something to be said for actually living the dream, not just paying lip service to it.
Before I get too sappy and start sounding more than a tad bit like a stalker, time to move on. Just needed to get the tribute out of the way before diving into the meat of this guest post. Yes, you heard right, a guest post. As soon as Brit dropped the bomb on all of us that she was planning on getting married, I began formulating some advice for her in my head. As I can’t keep these types of things to myself, I pleaded/conned her into letting me share them in a post a la Blunt Delivery.
I’ve been married for nearly 17 years. SEVENTEEN YEARS, people. When I see it in print, screaming at me on the page like that, I feel well past my sell by date. In the words of my mother, may she rest in peace, “Getting old sucks.” Yes, it does. To combat the slow decline into an appalling state of suckage, I have remained in an on again off again state of denial. I am the same age as Jennifer Aniston, our birthdays only a day apart. 42 never looked as good as it does on the former Friends star. I like to think I’m not too off the mark. Considering my head still thinks I’m 28, I just use good old Jen as a body barometer. Let’s hope she continues to keep herself well preserved for quite sometime. Otherwise, I shall have to find a new coping strategy.
But, I digress. The real point of me taking up space here is to share my years of wisdom on the marriage front. There are several things to keep in mind when embarking on such a journey with another human being. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Most of them involve empty toilet paper rolls and dirty clothes.
1) Choose your battles – My mother-in-law gave me this sage piece of advice years ago when I got into one of the few truly unhappy discussions with my husband about something we didn’t see eye to eye on. There are times to stand your ground and there are times to let it go. Most of the time, it’s better to just let it go. Your man refuses to remember to put a new toilet roll on the holder or pick up his dirty shirts off the floor, chances are this is not a battle you are going to win over time. Trust, me there will be a multitude of things you do that drive him crazy. Unless its routinely setting the house on fire or clipping your toenails in bed, let’s hope he too decides not to pick a fight.
2) Compromise – This is a corollary to number one. Life is about compromise and whether you like it or not so is marriage. I’m just going to tell you now, unless your soon to be husband is secretly gay, he hates throw pillows. All men hate throw pillows. Do they have to live with throw pillows? If they’re married to a woman, they will. Personally, I’m not a fan of watching Major League Baseball or professional golf on television when I’d rather be soaking up reruns of Modern Family, but I go with it. It’s called compromise and it’s not always fun but it’s necessary.
3) Listen (or at least do a really good job of pretending to listen) – I would like to say that my husband is the only one who does not listen but I would be lying. Multitasking is a fallacy even though we all know women are better at faking it than men. My husband taps away on his phone while simultaneously playing Angry Birds on his iPad all the while “listening” to me inform him that our friends will be picking us up for dinner at 6pm that night. When 5:45 rolls around and I bark at him to change his clothes, he wonders why I never told him what time he needed to be ready. This happens while I am writing at the computer and he reports about something I need to know. It’s annoying, not good for the relationship and it means finding yourself in your own personal episode of Three’s Company with a big misunderstanding and no hugs from two dippy roommates to make you feel better.
4) Keep yourself happy – “You complete me.” This is one of the all time best lines in a movie but, contrary to popular belief, Jerry McGuire is not reality. No one can make you happy. Only you can do that. As soon as you start relying on someone else to fulfill you, you’re in trouble. My husband is the best part of my life but no matter how wonderful he is, he can’t find my way for me. That’s my job.
5) Like the song says, “Tell him that you love him.” – There’s nothing quite like hearing it even though he knows it. That goes for the women too.
There you go. That’s my top five, shot from the hip, list of advice for the soon to be Blunt Delivery bride. There’s nothing earth shattering about it. But, we must be doing something right since my husband and I are still married, very happy and carrying on conversations containing complete sentences with one another.
Like I said before, growing old sucks. Getting old with someone you love makes it all seem just this side of all right. Before you know it, you’ll be seventeen years down the road, deluding yourself into believing you’ve aged nearly as well as some Hollywood A-lister, and hopefully looking back on the happiest years of your life to date spent with your best friend.
Congratulations and all the best!
Jen (not Aniston)
Love it! Many thanks for the kind words and introduction. So much fun hopping on the Blunt train for a day.
aw thank YOU. you’re the best and I thank you so much for doing this!
Wonderful advise, Jen! I just celebrated our 18th and your 5 are excellent!
The one thing I will mention, though, from personal experience, is if the first year seems somewhat…ahem…discouraging….to the point that when it comes to your first anniversary you’re contemplating jumping ship, just be re-assured you’re not the only newlywed to feel that way. The first year can be tough…two lives trying to blend together, each getting to know the other’s daily habits. That single lifestyle now packed away in a box….they’re all natural adjustments, but as Jen said, having a lifetime partner has so many joys that being single can’t touch with a 100-ft. pole! I wish you both all the happiness marriage can bring!
aw thanks jillsy… yea i know it’ll be a big adjustment especially since i’ve been on my own for SO LONG.
and all my friends are pretty much married, so they’ve warned me of the “no longer single” blues that come after marriage.. so i’m preparing myself. I’ll just remember it’s normal and i have an amazing man so i have nothing to be sad about!
One of the first things that drew me to Blunty (besides her ridiculous wit and kickass photography skillz and love for the Bachelor and overall hotness, that is) was that she hates mayo. And Neil Diamond.
Oh, AND that she was a commitment phobe. While I am still in the “commitment phobe” phase of my life (ten years and counting!), knowing that she had the courage to put it all out there and eventually break down those walls, gives me hope that maybe I won’t be the old lady who rents out her basement for next to nothing just so if she dies her body won’t sit there for weeks before the mailman finally notices the horrible stench and calls the police.
Er, I guess my point is that this is wonderful advice, especially the part about compromising. If I ever do let that wall down, I have a feeling I’m going to be referring to this post regularly…:)
stop yourself!!!! you are too much!
we are kindred spirits me and you… and you won’t die alone. you’ll get there. girl, if i can YOU can.
everyone wrote me off as a lost cause 😉
I cannot believe I’ll have been married 5 years this June. Seriously. Back in college, I knew I wasn’t even going to think about getting married until I was at least 30, but here I am, 28-years-old and 5 years into an actual marriage (and, coincidentally, experiencing a major case of the “7-year itch” – but maybe that’s because we’re 8 years into the relationship).
So. I don’t know anything and therefore am not really qualified to offer advice, except for this:
If he really is a good man, you’ll know it already. Mine is, and I feel pretty lucky about that. The direction the toilet paper faces on the roll IS important – I don’t care what anybody says. Sometimes it seems like giving up is the easiest option, but the easiest option isn’t always the best. You should take everything Tom Cruise says with a grain of salt, whether he’s in character or not. I wish someone had told me about #4 in Jen’s list before I’d gotten married. Elope, elope, elope. OR, be cool-headed enough to let everyone else plan your wedding – anyone else who wants to plan it (and they ALL will want to plan it) – and just enjoy the day.
That is all.
wow. FIVE YEARS!?!? and we are the same age!
Yea, i never would have made it i had way too much to get out of my system…
i hear ya on that.. i definitely have a good man and i try to appreciate and remember that every day. and you’re right, you DEFINITELY know when you do…. the bad ones help make that so much more obvious.
Okay, that wasn’t all.
You hate mayo and Niel Diamond?!
Well. We can’t have everything in common.
If it doesn’t work out with what’s-his-name, I still want to know.
um, yes and yes.
you’ll be the first on my call list.
Great advice, Jen! From another married lady of 14 years, you’re right on! Pick your battles, say I love you and I’ll add: remember why you were attracted to your husband in the first place!
welcome equestrian! and i think that is great addition… it’s hard to remember sometimes when u get caught up in the day to day annoyances…. oh YEA, i really liked this guy at one point.
Goooooood advice! I was married for 10 years and can attest to this. Of course, I’m now happily divorced, so what the hell do I know?
probably more than me, who has been married zero times and broken off like 3 engagements??
Clearly I have nothing to offer on this topic.
God love you for that.
Why are you so awesome?
some things the world may never know
dude. I leave for a little while and you go and get engaged??? Congrats! It’s 16 yrs for me (can I get an amen from all the Jennifer’s born in the 70’s?!)
anyhoo…It sounds like you are in deep smit, and that’s fantastic!
yea yea yea that’s how i roll….
have i mentioned lately that you’re fantastic and amaze me??
This is such a wonderful post… every single point you make is spot-on, especially #’s 1 and 2. Little did I know we were both married 17 years Jen! Our 17th was Saturday. 🙂
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Full disclosure: I don’t believe in soul mates, I don’t believe in forever, so when I read advice about how to make a marriage last I take it in as more of a cultural anthropological level.
My BF and I are celebrating the 7th year each by getting hitched. One thing I’ve discovered is that marriage advice is as individual as, well…individuals. For me, there is no magic formula. There is only you and yours and what works for you.
I followed you over here from Jen’s, and this is not JUST advice, these are words of wisdom! I’m going on my 11th year being married but I really do need to practice #1, in fact.. can I quote that?
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