Mawwiage

You know what I've been thinking?

There is no secret to marriage. It's a total crapshoot. There is no good age to be married, no good reason, no bad reason, no acceptable level of maturity or how well you know each other. Because no matter how unlikely a marriage's success may seem, there's always SOMEONE out there who got married under the same circumstances and is still happily married umpty years later.

I dated Drew for about 2 weeks before we decided to get married. We were officially engaged 2 weeks later. We were married 6 weeks after that. I was 20, he was 23. We were definitely a disaster scenario. Yet 10 and a half years later, we're happy. Really happy.

People hear how old I was and how quickly we were married and say "well, when you know, you know." But doesn't everyone "know" when they get married that they're marrying the right person?

People who get divorced look at the reasons their marriage went sour and think that those elements will equal disaster for every marriage. People who are happily married think that the things that make them work will make everyone work.

Thing is, everyone is an individual. Whether that individual will mesh with another individual is anybody's guess. And, each individual goes through subtle changes throughout the years. Whether the changes the two individuals make will result in 2 compatible people is anybody's guess.

And there's this cultural myth that people get divorced too easily without trying to heal their marriages. I don't know anyone for whom divorce wasn't a really big painful freakin' deal. I feel like if it happens all the time like people say it does, I'd at least know one couple who just woke up one day and decided "meh, it's the single life for me."

I don't know what makes me and Drew work together so well, but we do, and I guess I just haven't experienced the hard work marriage is supposed to be. He's my absolute best friend, and not in that he's-my-husband-and-has-to-be way, I mean in that he's-kinda-awesome-and-I'd-rather-hang-out-with-him-than-anyone-else way. We aren't jealous. We joke with each other, a lot, through everything. These things aren't work, it's just how we are. We haven't made much of an effort to be in the happy marriage we're in, we're just damn lucky we found each other, and he was damn smart to finally stop running from me and see reason.

So yeah, that's what I've been thinking. I'm in a great marriage, and it's not because of any hard work I've done or because I did all the right things to find the right man and prepare for marriage. It's because I (hopefully he feels we) got really lucky in the crapshoot. I hope we stay this lucky forever.