The Nine (Other) Promises We Made When We Got Married…and How We Are Faring 12 Years Later

Happy Valentine’s day, world. We aren’t typically big “celebrators” of today’s holiday, despite my intense love of all things “romance” and ability to create sentiment out of the most benign situations. But I started this post a few months ago after you guys asked for it, and well, today felt appropriate and kinda sweet. Besides, these days I sure as hell celebrate a successful marriage because I know it’s not something to take for granted. After 19 years, I’m very, very very happy that I still love that guy and actually want to hang out with him. A lot.

If you missed it, a few months ago, I posted part one of  “marriage promises” that Brian and I wrote together on our honeymoon (over a bottle of wine, surely). These promises were meant to hold our future selves accountable to our youthful, innocent and naive ideals. If you are just getting married, I STRONGLY recommend doing this because boy, has it made me ask myself some hard questions.  Holding up a mirror to your own set of past beliefs is nothing but good, sheer, terrifying self-analysis. This round is way less about our marriage and far more about what kind of people we wanted to become, or actually the kind of people we wanted our futures selves to avoid becoming. It’s highly self-indulgent, more like a journal so if you aren’t into reading others self-analysis then come back tomorrow. Meanwhile, let’s see how we did.

Good to know that my penmanship hasn’t changed in 12 years. I should get it analyzed and find out what it really says about me…

#1. Once a week we have a date night.

The original intent: We wanted to make sure that we always connected outside of friends and TV, the other big distractions in a marriage that can make it seem like you are spending time together, but you aren’t really connecting. 

How we are doing: HA. We definitely don’t do once a week, but I’d say at least twice a month (when we are good, when we are in a slump we’ll forget for over a month). This is obviously due to kids because before kids we would do date nights like at least two or three times a week. Right now, Brian is in a play, rehearsing every single night (except for Mondays when I get my break from parenting and he takes over) so right now, it’s extra bad. This is something to work on, but I will say that usually, Friday family night is hard to forego, then often we hang out with friends all day on Saturday so we often just feel like staying in on Saturday nights after we put the kids down. This is the most boring story I’ve ever told. Maybe thats because we have gotten boring. You HAVE to plan them and while many will say even an hour at your local restaurant is a good thing, we have found that in order for us to connect and get over the basic stuff (kids, schools, work, politics), we need a full night (3 to 4 hours) and just going to a movie without dinner doesn’t count. You can’t ask your partner “How are you? No, really? Are you happy right now?” the second you sit down at a burger joint. And that’s the stuff you really need to talk about on a date. Not your kids and not your friends. You need to get to the  “are you happy right now” convo and that takes a little while (for us at least). 

Definitely, need to get better on this.

#2. We do not become obsessed with our kids.

The original intent: We think that was to prevent us from neglecting ourselves, living vicariously through our kids and not letting them be their own people.

How we are doing: I’m not sure. We don’t think we smother them, but we are pretty obsessed with them. They are so little that aren’t you kinda supposed to be obsessed with them at this age and loosen the reins later? I’m not a helicopter parent, maybe that’s what we were trying to avoid? I’m not sure what level of obsession is healthy if any…thoughts? Brian says we are the right level of obsessed, which is “very” but we still have our own lives and go on vacation without them. 

#3. Every decision we make will be good for us individually as well as our family.

The original intent: This is the whole “happy parent, happy kid” thing that we’ve always believed. This was to prevent us from moving to the suburbs where our thoughts, similarities, cultures, would be discarded for a better school district and bigger yard for our kids. This was also to avoid one of us getting a job we hated in order to pay the mortgage. I remember thinking ‘why would you ever do a job you hate just to support your family when you could scale back, rent forever and just send your kids to public school?’ (ha. see #4) It’s not wrong, it’s just very naive because most people don’t necessarily have any other option (or just have different priorities). 

How we are doing: What you can’t predict, what you don’t know until you have kids is that the happiness and well-being of our kids actually largely determines your happiness, and that security and feeling safe plays a huge part in feeling happy. The suburbs do provide things that living within a city doesn’t. True story: Two years ago, we were desperate to move to a suburb of LA to get more of that life before we bought this house, but were deterred by the school district. Our friends were appalled at the idea of leaving “the city” but we just kept saying wait ’til you have two kids and need space and quiet. Listen, with these kids and two jobs, it’s not like we are going to concerts and art openings every night. We are definitely constantly eyeing suburban living, just getting outside of the city and having more space, less traffic and a generally more family-oriented community. We also know that we are idolizing this and we aren’t seeing the failings of such a suburban life. In fact, the reason we haven’t moved to the mountain house is because we know that while the kids would thrive (for now), we probably wouldn’t. We might get bored, miss culture, miss diversity, miss the hilarity and intellect of our friends, so I guess we are kinda choosing our happiness while trying to prioritize them. For now.