Marriage: It's Pretty Neat...If You Make It Neat

Howdy gang✌🏼This week’s topic was about marriage.  To start this off, lemme describe a scene from one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of all time: Shrek 2.  Yeah.  I said it.  

The main characters’, Shrek and Fiona, have finished enjoying their honeymoon and are returning home to an invitation from Fiona’s parents: the king and queen of Far Far Away.  Fiona is elated to introduce her husband to her parents, but Shrek is fearful that his parents-in-law will reject him because he is an ogre.  Fiona rejects that notion and says that they only want to give Shrek their blessing so that he can be a part of the family.  Shrek exclaims, “Hey! Who said I wanted to be a part of this family?”  Fiona responds with, “Uh, you did when you married me!”  

I had to pause the movie at that moment.  I realized that Shrek is not only a gold mine for internet memes.  I also learned that there is a really good lesson on a transition in marriage within the movie as well.  I know it's silly, but it's true.  The words of my dad echoed in my mind at that very moment.  He always told me, “Remember, son, with great power comes great-” 

Wait, that’s not the right one.

He always taught me, “Remember, son, when you marry your spouse, you marry their family as well.”

I’ve always had this dream that I’m pretty sure everyone has at one point or another where I meet my future spouse and everything is all sunflowers and roses, but then all of a sudden, the dream comes to a halt because BEHIND my spouse is this group of people that come with them.  Then you realize, “Oh shoot!  They’re part of the dream too!”

Now, I’ve never been married before.  I have a pretty good idea of what happens, though.  I think you have to make some decisions and changes, and those choices can be hard.  For example, in preparation for marriage, there is always the planning of the wedding.  I don’t know if this is true in all wedding situations, but I have ALWAYS seen more effort on the woman’s part when it comes to actually planning the wedding and sending out invites.  I have never seen anything from the men.  I’m not saying that’s a bad thing to have the woman do all the planning for her and her fiance's wedding.  I’m only pointing out that the planning of a wedding is a good opportunity for a future husband and wife to plan and make those decisions together for their wedding.  

Another facet about a wedding plan is the finances.  The average wedding in America is as expensive as 30,000 dollars.  That’s a lot of cash.  How does one get all that money to finance the wedding?  Well, I heard a story of a wealthy family that had a daughter who was about to be married.  Her family had enlisted their aid in financing her wedding.  They were going to pay for every expense necessary to make this wedding great.  Well, this young lady was sitting in her marriage and family course and one of the topics that came up was wedding planning.  The teacher was pointing out how detrimental it can be to a newlywed couple to have families finance weddings.  The young lady, we’re going to call her Karen, stood up in the middle of class and shouted, “That’s NOT how it's going to be with my family!  Everything is going to turn out fine.”  Her teacher, we’re going to call him….Mike Myers, responded to her, “Trust me, problems will arise.”

Fast forward four months later, Mike Myers gets an email from Karen.  In the four months that followed her wedding, her relationship with her husband had begun to crumble because of her family’s actions after their marriage (again, going back to the whole “you marry the person, you marry the family deal.)  Her family had expected her to live closer to them, name her first child after her father, and expected to be repaid in full.  Because her parents had offered their services in paying for her wedding, they were now expecting things in return as if she was indebted to them.  She was on the search for a marriage counselor to help her.  I’m sure Mister Myers had a steaming pot of “I told you so” ready for her for those four months😂

One more thing and then I’ll shut up.  We talked quite a bit about planning the wedding.  But are we making sure that we don’t get so wrapped up in planning the festivities that we are forgetting to plan the MARRIAGE itself??  That’s pretty important right?  When all of the people and the decorations go away, is the devotion between husband and wife staying????  Discussing how you want to create your marriage is of the utmost importance because you’re stuck with one another from here on out. Some things couples might consider are how many kids they might want to have, who’s going to raise those kids, HOW are the kids going to be raised, what chores need to be done and when, what’s the financial budget going to look like, where is the family going to live, what friends are the couple going to keep and which ones might they want to let go of? Are they going to church?

Just to name a few.

I’m not claiming to be an expert in marriage.  But I think I know quite a bit.  I just hope that when the time comes for me to get married (should that ever occur), I’m ready to make the necessary decisions to have a happy ever after of my own.  

In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”