Four months.

That’s how long I’ve had to figure out this whole marriage mystery – life with the blinders off as some would say.

Many have asked what has surprised me most about marriage.  Most of the answers that immediately start scrolling the news banner in my brain would either be of such saccharine mush that the askers would surely lose their recently consumed sugar that all the crap has been blessed out of, or be improprietous at best.

Thirty-Three Years.

That’s how long I’ve had to listen to all of the conversations and advice on all of the marital surprises or lack thereof.

So, what is most surprising?

The experience.

Imagine you are going to the gym to run three miles for the first time.  Everyone has told you how much work running three miles is, you are prepared for the sweat, the stink, and the breathlessness.  You are also prepared for the euphoria you feel upon completing a physical challenge both mentally and physically, the “it hurts so good” muscle aches, and the freedom of knowing you can now do something you perhaps could not do before.  But can you truly describe any of it before actually completing the run?

To me, marriage is my gym.  I’m prepared, I’ve heard it all…yet until I actually experience it, I cannot possibly truly comprehend what it all means.  I could not possibly comprehend where and why I would feel joy or where and why I would feel despair.

Joy!  Oh yeah, there is a lot of that.  My Robbie is a gem!  He’s observant, he likes to come to my activities, he always wants me by his side, he cleans up after me when I have food poisoning, he puts up with my cat, he leaves me notes, he enjoys going to church, he supports me in whatever I decide…you get the picture.

Despair?  Are you all gasping in disbelief that I would dare utter such a word in regards to marriage?   The great thing about despair, to me, is that it is a type of mourning.  When your mourning time is complete, you are able to fully embrace where life has taken you.

Single life for me was very happy.  I fulfilled dream after dream.  I dated man after man, learning more about myself and my future partner with each experience.  I worked hard.  I established a name for myself.   I had an identity as a strong, independent, single woman.  Then, one day I got married.  I chose to give up my name, my condo,my job to work with Rob, and my “I can do whatever I want whenever I want” whimsy.  Everything that was mine that I had worked so hard for was suddenly ours. Even my own body was no longer private.  Giving up singular control has never been a task I’ve handled well and marriage is the ultimate form of control-sharing.  I would be lying if I said I didn’t mourn a part of the life I left behind, but I’d also be lying if I said I weren’t extremely curious and excited about the joys ahead of me.  I did choose this after all.

I’ll let you in on a few other surprises:

1. Friends disappear.  We’ve all done it.  Bob and Betty get married and then we figure they don’t need us anymore or they have better things to be doing than hanging out with their single friends.  This is not the correct train of logic.  Thank heavens my friends quickly caught on that they are stuck with me and we keep the good times a rolling.
2. Family wards are a difficult adjustment.  I began my BYU education at 17 and have attended singles wards for the past 16 years.  I’m baffled by how much I don’t know about family wards and moreso about how much they don’t know about us.  By “us,” I mean the single people – which I no longer am, but at this point I identify with singles a whole heck of a lot more than I do more mature families.
3. Friends are afraid to call and interrupt sex.  I have had more than a handful of friends state they wanted to call me, but were afraid I’d be in the middle of “something.”  Oh, really?  Darlings, it’s called “I won’t pick up the phone if I’m in the middle of ‘something.'” And “something” doesn’t last all day.
4. Not all male hormonal clocks are set to “Mate like bunnies 24/7.”  I was always lead to believe that men wanted to be involved as much as imaginably possible.  Society had brainwashed me into thinking that if you weren’t constantly rebuffing his advances out of pure exhaustion, then you must be a repulsive creature.  Not true.  Each couple has their own level of what works for them.
5. Husband is waaaay better than boyfriend or fiancee.  I haven’t really talked with Rob about the psychology behind this, but I imagine that all the time and effort put into wondering, “Is she the one?” is now being spent on, “What can I do to make this work?”  Trying to figure out if you are going to walk away is no longer a thought, however, you are consumed with thoughts on how you can make life better for your partner.
6. My husband’s friends are amazing to me.  Yes, I knew this before, but they continue to make me love them more as they continue to value his friendship as much as he values theirs.  I’ve always hated the old adage of “ball and chain.”  Again, society pushes the thought that men don’t like each others’ wives because women are nags who take away a man’s freedom.  Not true.  Shout out here to you-know-who-you-are who joins us almost every Sunday night for chatting and a movie.  Everyone’s invited:-)
7. My husband is my constant defender and fan club.  This shouldn’t surprise me, but being as I’ve only ever dated and dated and dated, I’m used to being my own biggest defender and fan club.  Sometimes I want to say, “Hey, I can do this myself!”  But you know…I kinda like it.
8. I am a selfish son-of-a-gun.  There is only one way to do things.  Right?  Right?  Crickets?  Fine.  I had no idea how set in my ways I was.  Thank heavens for the art of compromise and someone willing to practice with me.
9. Having separate bathrooms is a godsend.  This also does not mean that you’ve given up on trying to share your lives.  I originally thought we had to share everything or we had somehow failed.  But when there was not enough room in one bathroom for all of our things, we decided it best to split into the two upstairs bathrooms.   Keeping space of my own actually helps me with the transition.
10. Not all men are “gross.”  I attribute most of this to ignorance because we don’t share a bathroom.  My fella has great hygiene and dresses quite snazzy…he even irons.
11. Merging eating schedules has been one of the most difficult concepts for me.  I eat every three hours or I physically and mentally shut down.  I’m used to just grabbing something whenever the time frame is right and that’s done.  But what about my husband?  What’s he going to eat?  Oh yeaaah…hmm..I should probably think about that.  It’s been difficult and caused my waistline some expansion.  We are still trying to work this out.
12. Planning the future together.  For sixteen years, I have had single friends surrounding me instead of family.  My friends became my family.   Yet, as all single people do, we each had different plans for our lives and making long-term plans with anyone seemed out of the question.  I still get a little giddy inside and, yes, surprised when Rob talks about doing something with me a few months down the road.
13. Birth control can change you into an evil doppelganger of yourself.  After all of those years single, I’m still warming up to the idea of miniature Larissa/Rob hybrids running around wreaking havoc, so I had to take necessary medicinal precautions.  Folks, I cannot begin to tell you the crazy that grasped its tentacles so tightly around my brain that I popped right out of my consciousness and watched myself acting as a third party onlooker most of the time…down right out-of-body experiences.  This was not pleasant and took three months too long to figure out.  No one publicly talks about these things, or at least I’d never heard them, so here I am to say if your wife has morphed into an unknown entity residing in your fiancee’s body, I would highly recommend looking into the possibility that it may be her birth control.

I know this list is random.  What surprises each person is different.  What surprised you about marriage?