Cinderella Never had to Apologize

There have been a few youngins who have asked me about marriage, what it is like, and if I have any advice. "Oh! Yes!" I say, I love giving advice. (Sorry to those who did not want it!) I already have a mental lecture put together for just such the occasion. Here are four serious things that anyone married or getting married should probably consider. Unfortunately they do not all start with the same letter.

1. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? 
Your spouse/future spouse is human. We cannot expect perfection from them. Surprise! This seems obvious, but after watching Cinderella, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, etc., our brains are programmed to expect constant happiness, security, and star-stricken obsessive love for us, all coming from this magical person we found singing in the forest. But there is nothing about the human condition that allows for constant happiness, nothing about this dog-eat-dog world that allows for perfect security, and no matter how awesome I think I am, my spouse is going to have days, weeks, or you know, longer... where I'm not their favorite person. Which brings me to my next point:

2. Apologize Apologize APOLOGIZE!
Especially when I first got married, I would grit my teeth and force myself to at least mumble an apology, until I got better at it where I would actually say it audibly. It seemed like I was doing this twice a day or more at first, and I'm probably just getting lazy now, but I never fail to amaze myself at how horribly selfish I can be (family is not allowed to comment here). Sometimes the thing I am apologizing for seems unimportant to me, small, unnecessary to apologize for. But here's the kicker: he has a different opinion than me! Whoa. So, it's like a pebble in the shoe, even though it is small, if I don't get it out of there, it's going to keep rubbing. Then so will all those other pebbles, over years of wear, eventually destroying both the foot and the shoe. It is never too late to remove them. "Hey, sorry I always take the last of the ice cream, I know that bugs you, do you want it this time?" or even, "do you want to share it with me this time?"  If you can't go all the way, compromise.

3. "I do everything around here!"
Guess who else is thinking that? The idea is that each spouse is supposed to do 50%. But somebody told me once that if you don't feel like you're doing 90%, you probably aren't doing enough. Keep an eye on that other person and see what they are doing, it is probably different than what you do, because they probably think different things are important. Well, here we are again with the fact that they have a different opinion. Weird. The thing you've been stewing about for twelve years, they didn't even know they were doing because it wasn't important to them, so maybe instead of getting bitter, you should:

4. Tell them.
On television, there's always the girl who shouts, "If you don't know what you did wrong, then that's even worse!" still leaving the guy bewildered, and to his knowledge, innocent. Maybe your spouse grew up in a house where dishes were done immediately after the meal, and you were brought up in a house where you do them as the food is cooking, before the meal. (Disclaimer: If anyone I know has this issue, I'm not talking about you, I didn't know you had this issue) So when the dishes lay there until the next meal, your spouse gets aggravated, but you don't know what all the crankiness is about. But by the next meal, the bad mood has lifted, so you come to the conclusion that when they are cranky, feed them and they will perk up! Talk about confusing! If this were my problem, I would prefer my spouse approach me and say, "could we do the dishes right after we eat?" Note the word "we" there. When you ask someone to go out of their way and change, it's a good idea to pitch in, at least at first. I might actually agree to do that, even though I don't want to, since he was nice about it. If he mumbled loudly from the living room, "that kitchen stinks!" I would definitely go do something else in a room where he is not, and be mad at him for the rest of the night, hurt by his frank criticism. (which, by the way, is completely unlike my husband) Tell them the problem before you are mad or bitter about it, and think really hard about how you could say it without stabbing them in the heart. A side note: it takes a long time to build or break old habits, so don't expect obvious improvement right away, you may have to ask nicely again and again.

In summary, your spouse is fallible, your spouse is not you, and your spouse cannot read minds. Hmm. Something to think about.