So... How's married life?

Social situations are awkward.

(10,000 hermit internet nerds just sent me a 'tru dat')

People like to ask how you are. I've no idea how honest to be.

"I'm fine."
"I'm great!!! (not really)"
"Been better"
"Been better, been worse though" (in an attempt to sound grateful)
"To be honest, I want to slit my wrists and write 'fuck all of you' on the bathroom wall while I quickly fade to death.... LULZ. You?"

I like being honest, and I like it when people are honest with me. If I ask someone how they are, I genuinely want to know and am ready to hear the truth and not a socially acceptable answer. But how honest do people want me to be in return?

The hardest question I've had put to me is "How's married life?". A plethora of people have asked me this - family, real friends, acquaintances, people who are facebook friends, people who are facebook friends for the sole reason that they want to spy on me and judge me (and vice-versa, let's be honest). The answer I give can spark a rumor of where we are on the divorce-o-meter, and I am sure many are looking for their daily fix of schadenfreude. Many are just being polite. Some are just plain sincere.

But, as I want to be honest, I've had no idea how to answer in a manner that is concise, to the point yet truthful and detailed without being TMI.  

Married life is everything and nothing that I thought it would be. Am I being a cliche? Suck it up - I am being honest. Being married has inadvertently sparked some pretty hideous mind bombs that I've repressed the shit out of for my entire life, but it's also given me the security to deal with those things because my husband had made a promise to me to be there for me for better or for worse. Who knew for worse would come so soon in our marriage, but that only means that for better is just around the corner - or, indeed, already here - and that the better that is coming is better than anything we could have shared before my own personal crapstorm which has cleared my oh, so fragile and preciouzzzz internal air.

Being married is fucking scary. I knew this even a year ago when I wrote the following post which I never published because it was so sickly sweet that it made me want to hurl (which is a no no for all emetophobics)

Marriage is the most challenging and hard thing I've faced. It makes me look at myself in a different way and also my husband. I feel so much more pressure to make it work now, and a consequence of that for me is that I clam up wicked bad. I come from a family where the parents stayed together for the kids and it was AWFUL and I have no good role models for relationships so I am pretty much a novice.

But at the same time - I feel safe, I feel loved, I love taking care of him and loving him. He and I play like little kids together and he makes me laugh.

I'm not always sure if I was right to get married... sometimes I doubt myself and my capabilities to be with another person in an intimate relationship. Sometimes he doubts me. Sometimes he frustrates the shit out of me and I yell at him like I've only yelled at my dad before.

And then I wake up in the morning and the first thing I want is to feel his skin against mine and when I see his face I smile and I want to stay there forever. And my doubt and my fear goes away and all that is left is my heart which speaks its will loud and clear and all it says is "Stephen"

First, aww. Second, hork! Third, HAHAhaHA. A few months after writing that I was laying in a fetal position wishing to die in my sleep because I was going through something infinitely more difficult and challenging than marriage. (Sorry, baby, but you're not the worst thing that's happened to me - I'm sure you're saddened to hear that.)

Most of what I wrote is still true though - I look at myself differently. I didn't know what that meant at the time, and I was scared that somehow he would own me now, and that somehow I wasn't my own person anymore... but in reality, all that I was feeling was family security. No wonder I was freaked out. I've never experienced that in my life. Quite natural that I, a person who does not like to attach to relationships, would misunderstand a feeling of belonging and security with "holy shit, what is this? I am being held captive. And a prince can't come save me, because I already married mine! Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I am being pwned and I don't like it. Attack! Retreat!"

How fucked up must a person be to be traumatized by feeling secure? Good job, brain. Thanks for trolling me once again. 


I don't clam up as much now. Holy crap was that a battle. Communication 101 was too advanced for me so I had to start in communication kindergarten and work myself up to communication college. I never thought I would relate so much to an Adam Sandler movie. A year ago I honestly did not think it was possible for me to ever have a difficult conversation (Read: conversations revolving around any type of emotion) without my mind going completely blank in an attempt to shield myself from OMG TEH HORROR that my brain thought would occur if I opened my mouth and said how I felt. But I'm better now. I still panic and leave the room sometimes but I come back and I finish. Miracles up in this bitch.

Am I capable of being with another person? Yes. But that person really needs to understand where I come from and give me heaping helpings of grace. Does he still doubt me? Yeah, sometimes. He sometimes shouts at me that I wasn't ready to get married so why did I? It is probably true that I wasn't 100% ready to marry. But I was 100% ready to be ready. It hurts my feelings, because I'm always working to get better and I hate the judgement to be based on my hard times. I didn't ask for these hard times. But neither did he. Sometimes I wonder if all I am is hard times. I wonder if depression, anxiety, phobia, PTSD have made me part of them instead of the other way around. Am I a buzzkill? Party pooper? Reality-check girl? Am I the keeper of the life people compare theirs to and say "I guess I'm lucky, after all"?

I watch him a lot. And I mean that in a creepy, stalkery way. I watch him when he doesn't know I'm there. I watch him play with the cats, watch him play with his computer, watch him sleep, watch him eat, I open the bathroom door slightly, quietly, and watch him shower. It feels like I breathe easier when I see his face. Or his butt (what?). When he holds me I smile. When he isn't here I feel sort of... muted. A little less colourful. But what makes me even happier is that I know that even without him here I am just fine, content. I don't need him with me. I want him with me. I am glad to know that I truly do not need anyone.

So in summary. Married life: Fine! Great (for the most part). Been worse, getting better. Would use my last drop of blood to let him know I love him. Would live a million years by his side. Makes me frequent cooking sites so I can find cookie recipes that I can't even eat. Makes me troll wedding sites to plan a vow reaffirming ceremony.