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From the moment I could date women, I’d date them. I'd date them, and then the relationship would eventually burst into flames. Call it bad luck, call it immaturity, call it me being a bad romantic partner. However you say it, you’re probably not wrong and I own that. Ex-partners have had an affect on me for a long time. After a relationship failed, I would be back on the market ASAP to find someone else. I never took time to process the loss or think about what I could do better. I was just interested in finding “the one” and I wouldn’t allow myself to waste any time. #TedMosby 
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When you find yourself silently rooting for your husband as he poops with the door open, or when you spend the whole day on the couch next to him without even looking over, or when you notice that the only things you text him are Miss J gifs and bank account information, you may one day look to your husband and ask, “What’s happened to us?” At this point, you may summon vague images of your former self. That lithe, quick-witted person. That person whose clothes always fit them just right. You might remember sitting in the sun with your then-date-now-husband and talking for hours. You have forgotten what you said back then. All you can remember is what it felt like to be interesting. You want to feel that feeling again. You want to feel that feeling, but cannot summon the energy to say something clever. Your synapses are no longer firing in the way that makes you articulate things that are both heartfelt and electrifying. So you sit. And you fall asleep next to your husband at earlier and earlier intervals.  Yeah yeah yeah...every marriage blog and their mom wants to recommend 5 fun date ideas to you. But no one ever wants to talk about how expensive they are! Also, most of those date ideas are kinda stupid, so we came up with our own list. With Annie taking some time off of work to take on a graduate program, we’ve had to get really creative about the kind of dates we go on. Date nights will always be a priority in our marriage, even though our wallets right now can’t really support the more conventional date ideas most of the time. That’s ok...we’ve found a few ideas that really work for us: 1. Monday Movies in Nature 2. Tuesday Tasty Video Nights 3. Wednesday Walk Abouts 4. Thursday Thurstay! 5. Fake Identity Friday (On Saturdays and Sundays, just sleep in and go to brunch!)  Before Annie and I got married, I had a dream about us moving in together. In the dream, she arrived at our apartment with a few bags and a rolling suitcase. I, on the other hand, showed up with an entire moving truck of stuff. And as she opened up the back of the moving truck, she gave me a disconcerted look and said, “I don’t know if I can live with all of this.” I still think about this dream to this day. I entered into my relationship and marriage with a lot of baggage. The more I process my feelings, the more baggage I find. It often feels infinite. Anxiety, depression, vices, anger, past relationship woes, you name it. I never used to talk about it with my significant others, mostly because I never thought I could. How could they be with me if they really knew everything about me? It seemed so much easier to live a partitioned life.  When you think of marrying the love of your life, there are so many magical things that come to mind. You think about the life that you’ll build together, the children you may have, the endless romance you’ll cultivate, the places you’ll go, and the challenges you’ll overcome. Disney Films and romantic comedies glamorize marriage in ways that make us so eager to tie the knot that we often regret it. We’re given dreams and illusions of grandeur and love. We’re promised that marriage is about finding your other half. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll gain 20 pounds. And really, to some extent that’s true. Marriage is great. I’m happy with my choices. But marriage, in so many ways, is boring AF.  Members and Allies of The Millennial Marriage Movement, Jack here. This week, I’m being honest as hell. You’ll learn some things about me today that I’ve never been public about, so buckle up. Make sure you don’t have any small children with you and prepare yourself for the darker side of #ANNIEGOESJACK. I’ll start off by saying that I find it really ironic that as the co-founder of a millennial marriage blog, I haven’t always truly believed in marriage. I always knew that marriage was something that I’d inevitably do, but mostly because it was a status symbol that I needed for my own personal security. If I’m really being honest with you, I didn’t (and to some extent, still don’t) quite understand how lifelong partnership works. How can two people stay together forever? When I think about my favorite foods, movies, music, [insert anything I really love], it’s tough to picture myself doing those things forever without getting bored.  “But think about the moment when I get on that airplane,” I said, sitting on the couch, staring at Jack, by this time a bit teary. “Won’t it just be too sad?” Then Jack laughed. “Good Lord, you’re so dramatic. We’re not dying." Recently, Jack and I have made some choices about our future. We’ve stopped thinking so much about bouquet tosses and started wrestling with what our married life is going to look like. We’ve spent a lot of late nights talking about how to weave our dreams together into one family. It’s been hard. A long-held, quietly-kept dream of mine has been to get my master’s degree (MFA) in creative writing. I’ve been boiling on the inside for time, for connection, and for new adventure. Last fall, I decided that this was my year to go for it. Jack and I, already knowing we wanted to get married, decided I would pick seven schools, and Jack would look for jobs around those seven. Since Jack works in student affairs, and I would be attending a university, we thought we’d have a fairly good chance of finding something new. And boy (or girl) were we right! #inclusivity  It’s easy to believe that your best memories are your most perfect ones. After becoming engaged, we’ve discovered that quite often, the opposite is true. Imperfections have an interesting way of leaving footprints in your memory that make a richer story. When we look back on our engagement, there were a lot of perfect things. The leaves were immaculately fall-colored, the weather was pristine, and the excitement was palpable. But who cares, right? We don’t really look back on those details. It’s the imperfections that make our story worth telling and uniquely ours. I (Jack) still remember the first time I saw Crabtree Falls on a hiking trip with friends. As we got to the top, I saw the most breath-taking view of mountains and trees that I had ever seen. My initial thought was, “This view will be incredible in the fall.” My second thought was, “This is where I’ll propose to Annie.”  |
Annie & JackLove. Marriage. Teamwork. Art. Offsetting the patriarchal footprint. These are some of the things we're thinking about. Archives
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