Lessons From My First Year Of Marriage

As promised earlier, I said I would write a blog to impart some of the wisdom I have carefully gathered from my first year of marriage. These are not generic axioms, mind you; these conclusions are the result of careful, scientific observation and the application of Newton's First Law of Motion, which states: "Husbands inherently seek to keep their office in a state of chaos, even under the pretense of 'cleaning' and 'organizing.'" This is not to be confused with Newton's Third Law of Motion, which, as you well know, states: "For every husband's fart, there is an equal and opposite fart in retaliation from the wife, although usually in secrecy and silence."

The fundamental premise of this blog is simple: marriage is good. This statement comes with several qualifiers, however:

1) Marriage is good when God is involved. This really goes without saying, because I'm not sure marriage would make any sense apart from Him. In a society and culture that relishes in individualism and doing what's best for #1, making a lifetime commitment to love someone - not only for who they are right now, but for who they will continually become or not become - doesn't seem very intuitive. It's been said that in this sense, marriage is like signing an blank contract that gets filled out as you go along. What hasn't been said before now is that the contract is with a septic tank cleaning service. If God's your maintenance man, you can trust He'll faithfully clean out the crap, and keep that puppy healthfully fertilizing a whole garden of flowers. If some guy named "Spuds" is your maintenance man, then you'll be swimming in your own stuff before you can say "poo-bath."

2) Marriage is good when married to the right person. Fortunately for me, I married the right person. Corrie is by all standards, smarter, better-looking, more athletic, and much better at reaching a zen-like state wherein she can become one with every task that needs to be done in the entire universe, at any given moment in the space-time continuum. I loved and respected Corrie before we were married. However, the best part of marriage for me so far has been the reality of coming to love and respect her even more in the last year. There are times when I will literally be taken aback at the way she can handle a situation with grace, diffuse one of my moods, and avoid sticky surfaces in the kitchen. You'll note, in the picture on the left, that all of these qualities can be observed: beauty, intelligence, athleticism, and a chipmunk-like ferocity in tackling life.

3) Marriage is good in that it is also like taking a cheese-grater to that thing we call "selfishness."

This 'lil guy stayed hidden in a closet for almost 10 years, and learned to defend himself from the Doberman-rats. Needless to say, he was a little "irritated" when he finally came out...

Ah... there is nothing so refreshing as watching those shavings of self-centered epidermis fly away with every realization that you are very blessed to have ended up with someone like your spouse. Selfishness tends to bury itself in a person like a small child playing hide-and go seek in a mansion. It waits and waits, and doesn't come out until you've finally determined it must not be hiding anymore, or that it starved to death and was eaten by Doberman-sized rats. Just when you go about your other business though, it leaps out of the closet, and makes up for its lost nap-times and cheese-crackers by systematically making your peaceful afternoon a tantrum-hell. It's amazing - it really is.

4) Marriage is good, but it is especially good when connected telepathically to the non-verbal feminine communications database, which is located in a secret bunker somewhere in Colorado. All women must go here to train in non-verbal communication skills at some point, which is why men are usually less than adept at picking up on their invisible signals, which are communicated at frequencies that most televisions and bats can pick up. Incidentally, is why I can often be seen wearing television antennae.

5) The answer to every question is simultaneously "yes," "no" and "simple green." No idea what that means, but ask any married guy, and he'll tell you it's very, very true.

Well, that's it. Overall, I give marriage an A+ for excitement, cool Holy-Spirit effects, meaningful emotional intimacy, and funny farting moments.