BenCrowder.net

Newlywed thoughts from a month and a half after the wedding:

Surreality

I still find myself amazed that I’m actually married. This summer in a nutshell: I was single, I blinked, and then I was married. But it’s becoming less surreal by the day, thankfully.

For the first few weeks after we got married I kept getting a “What on earth have you done?!?” feeling, wondering if I’d made a huge mistake. I’m happy to report that those feelings have subsided. (Phew.) In the weeks since then, I’ve gotten more and more assurances that I did make the right choice (which is nice after a relatively speedy courtship, because even when you know it’s right, it’s still human to doubt and second-guess it).

In-laws

I have a new additional family now, and it feels more normal than I would have expected. But then again I lucked out and happened to get a completely awesome set of in-laws. Every single one of them is great. (Another phew.)

Since Mer and I are both locals, we end up doing the time-sharing thing for holidays, spending part of the time with one side of the family and part with the other. It’s a little more complicated but seems to be working out okay, and we made it through Christmas and New Year’s without offending anyone. At least I don’t think we did. :)

The club

My whole perception of the world has changed. It’s especially noticeable when I observe other relationships (both in real life and in movies and books), and I have to say that it’s kind of cool being in the “in” crowd. Getting married really is like joining a club.

Also, I feel older, and single people suddenly seem so much younger. It’s weird, but when I was single I did feel like married people were older than me, even if they were several years younger. I guess marriage adds a few years to one’s perceived maturity. (Sometimes, anyway.)

Comfortable

Watching TV/movies together is nice because we both get the same experience, but we’ve found that we prefer reading together (next to each other, that is). Reading usually leaves us feeling energized, whereas TV leaves us drained. And with 1,300 books in the apartment, it’d be a crime if we didn’t spend a lot of time reading. ;)

Like most married folks, we end up going to bed earlier. And we go to bed at the same time, which is something I hadn’t thought about when I was single. If one of us has to stay up working on something, the other one stays up as well. I don’t know how long this will last (hello, children), but it’s nice while it does.

It’s also nice always having someone to talk to, someone I can confide fully in. (And it’s so nice not having to go on any more first dates.) Back at the beginning of my relationship with Meridith, I was scared that we’d run out of things to talk about, but that fear (which was completely irrational) didn’t last long, and we certainly haven’t run out of things to talk about. Marriage is a lot of fun, too, with laughing and joking and teasing all over the place. I love it.

Money

We talked money early on in our relationship — right after we first talked marriage — and that’s helped smooth things out. Since financial problems are one of the leading causes of divorce, we’re making sure we nail this one.

It’s different being married and having the responsibility to provide for someone else, whereas when I was single I didn’t really care about money and pretty much bought whatever I wanted. I’m glad that bad habit has been curbed. (And no, I don’t feel like I’m in chains. I always wanted to be more frugal anyway.)

Consolidating bank accounts has taken longer than I thought it would, mainly because it took a couple weeks for Mer’s new social security card to come, then another couple weeks for her new driver’s license, and we’re still waiting for the new checks and cards to arrive. (Tangent: I don’t really get the couples who keep their money separate, but I guess that’s because I see marriage as a complete unity.)

Providing

It blows my mind that we have our own apartment and that my going to work each day is what’s paying for it. No more playing pretend: this is for real. And it’s awesome. I’m realizing now just how real my responsibility is to take care of my wife and (eventually) our children, providing for their well-being.

You know, if I didn’t see tons of other couples and families doing it successfully, I’d probably be intimidated right out of my socks. But everybody else is doing it (and one time won’t hurt, right? :P), so I’m not worried. It’s also very comforting knowing that this is what God wants for me, which means I can rely on His help when things get rough.

Also, now that the apartment I live in is my own (not shared with other guys), I have much more of a desire to take out the trash and do the dishes and all that stuff. I think my wife appreciates that. :)

Ups and downs

When I was single, I thought marriage was going to be idyllic, picture perfect, happily ever after. Bzzt. There are ups and there are definitely downs. We’re still human, after all.

I’ve been operating as a single-person institution for years, and my habits and expectations have hinged on that setup. Now there’s two of us. A lot of what I do has stayed the same, but a lot of it has also had to change — the rules of the game themselves have changed, even. I can’t keep doing things as if it’s just me. It doesn’t work.

In fact, I’ve found that the “happy wife, happy life” saying is completely true, but not for the obvious reason. It’s not because an unhappy wife will make a man’s life miserable (though that’s probably true, too). It’s because in losing your life, you save it — it’s because when you focus on your spouse’s happiness, letting go of the selfishness that tries so hard to burrow into your marriage, you find your own happiness. Now that I’m a married man, I realize how spot-on that is — and how hard it is to actually do it. It takes a lot of work. How did I ever think that I could just coast through my marriage without any effort? I was a fool.

Don’t take this to mean I’m discouraged or disillusioned, though. Marriage is wonderful. Sure, it’s work, but that’s just how life is, period. And this is some of the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done.

Meridith and I have never had a fight. Misunderstandings, yes. Hurt feelings, yes. But we’ve never raised our voices and we’ve never fought, and we plan to keep it that way. (We decided this early on in our dating.) Fighting isn’t worth it.

What do we do instead? We communicate. We adapt and adjust. We try to see things from the other person’s perspective. We forgive. We don’t let the small things bug us. (That’s another interesting thing, by the way. There are all sorts of little things that we didn’t care about while courting but which suddenly seem to become important after you’re married. They’re not important. Really. You can nitpick your marriage to death if you’re not careful.)

I’m also learning that even with all my reading of Jane Austen and other novels girls like, I still don’t understand women as well as I thought I did. :) Guys and girls are so different in some ways. Seriously. (Translation: I have to stop trying to fix everything. ;))

Worrying

When it started snowing a few weeks ago and the roads were bad, I realized I’m one heck of a worrywart. While it’s good to care (of course), too much worrying is paralyzing, and most of it is completely, utterly useless. Yes, any number of bad things could happen to my wife. Fact: almost of all of them will never happen. Ever. And even if they do end up happening, fear strips me of power and makes me weak. Better to chuck the fear and deal with things as they come, trusting in God no matter what happens. I don’t want to live a fear-driven life.

Baby Crowder

People keep asking if we’re pregnant. Hold on, folks. Even though it’s the next step, give us some breathing room. That said, it doesn’t actually bother me at all when people ask. In fact, I love telling people that Mer is expecting in May, then watching them do the math in their heads. “Wait, you got married in November, which means…” It’s great. (Yes, I do tell them at that point that I’m kidding.)

When will we have a baby? When it’s the right time. End of discussion.

It is fun to talk baby names, though, especially now that having a child is a real and distinct possibility. We’re thinking about naming our children after fonts — Georgia Italic Crowder, Helvetica Light Crowder, Lucida Sans Crowder, Palatina Linotype Crowder (Tina for short), or Futura Condensed Crowder for the girls, and Trajan Bold Crowder, Caslon Semibold Crowder, or Garamond Premier Pro Crowder for the boys, to name just a few. Twins? Museo and Museo Sans Crowder. And if we have a black sheep child, we’ll call them Comic Sans Crowder if it’s a boy or Papyrus Poke-Out-My-Eyes Crowder if it’s a girl. I may or may not have strong feelings about fonts. ;)

Another option we’re considering is giving our children the middle name “The” — Steve The Crowder, Jenny The Crowder, etc.

We’ve also thought about going with the acrostic method, having the first letters spell something: Christine, Robert, Olivia, William, David, Elizabeth, Rachel, for example. (And if we have a surprise baby, we can add Simon to the end to pluralize it.)

Okay, I’m kidding about all these, but we do have a list of names we’ve talked about and both like and we’ve settled on one for our first son. (You’ll have to wait till he arrives to hear what it is.) (No, that was not a sly way of making an announcement. We’re not pregnant.)

God

I feel more spiritually fortified now that I’m married. Not invincible, but definitely stronger. Covenants have real power, after all. So do the Primary answers of Mormonism — scripture study, prayer, going to church, paying tithing, having FHE, going to the temple, etc. The more we focus on God, we’ve found, the better things go. (Which doesn’t mean that bad things don’t happen. It does mean that we’re better able to deal with them, though, and that counts for a lot.)

On a similar note: when we were dating, I noticed that the closer I was to the Lord, the better I felt about our relationship.

Epilogue

This is just the beginning. I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot more about marriage and being a husband and father over the next few years, which means there’ll probably be several more blog posts like this. Hopefully shorter ones, though. ;)