How's Married Life?

Tanner and I have been married for almost eight months now, so we're practically experts (no, we're definitely not). And the first thing anyone asks when they see us is "How's married life?" It's easy to answer "So good!" because it really is so good. But also there are days that aren't so good and I want to remember this time in my life forever, good and bad. And I don't want my kids or my sisters to think they're crazy if someday they're annoyed with their husband. So. How is married life?

Things I love about being married:

-Tanner. He is all things that I wish I could be. It seems like every area I lack, he makes up for 100 times over. He is kind, patient, passionate, hard working, energetic, positive, smart, over achieving, funny, and pretty much all other good qualities you can think of. He loves me so much and I'm so grateful for that. He has never once gotten mad at me, he's kind and loving and understanding when I'm screaming about who knows what (probably being hungry), he always wants to go out and do things that I love doing, he believes in me and is excited for the things I'm accomplishing, he looks past my weaknesses and focuses on my strengths, he is confident in himself and the knowledge he has, he is ambitious and driven both in school, work, and in our relationship, he doesn't get discouraged when things go wrong, he has a testimony that is unshakeable, and he's super good looking so that's a bonus.

-Having someone to always hang out with. I get to live with my best friend, sleepovers every night WOOHOO. I love having someone to drag on hikes with me, to go to Costa Vida with because I didn't cook dinner (again), someone to go with me to Morty's every Thursday because $5 burgers and fries and then mini golfing after because $2 Thursday, someone to plan vacations with, someone to watch the Office with for the tenth time through, someone to patiently wait for new seasons of our favorite shows to come out (Brooklyn Nine-Nine I'm looking at you), etc. He's just fun to be with.

-It's also awesome having Tanner there to help make decisions. From changing majors to getting new jobs this summer to figuring out where we're going to be next year when Tanner is graduated, it's just nice knowing I won't have to make these decisions on my own. And to also know that wherever we end up we'll be together. 

-Family time. I thought it might be hard to add Tanner into our family and that I might see them a lot less, but that's not really the case. I love watching Tanner be a brother to my siblings. And it's way cool getting to bring my boyfriend to all our family gatherings ;) 

Growing experiences that have come from marriage (haha trying to not make it sound terrible because it's really not):

-Ok this is kind of worldly and selfish but it's kind of hard that all our money is combined. Like sometimes I just want to buy myself some clothes but I feel bad because it's technically not my money, you know? And like, I can't justify spending hundreds of dollars on Tanner for his birthday because he technically worked for part of that money, you know what I'm saying? So, it's dumb, but it's true. 

-I sometimes have communication problems. I'll be a little bit upset about something and I figure that it's not really important enough to talk about so I just sit there and stew over it and then Tanner asks me what's wrong and I just stay quiet and then he keeps asking and then I snap. And then I'm yelling and I'm freaking out about a million things that I wasn't even upset about in the first place and I'm crying and then I definitely don't want to talk and it's a vicious cycle that could have been avoided if I'd just told him what was bothering me in the first place. I just feel like I totally lose control over my emotions and that totally sucks but I'm working on it. And thankfully Tanner is the nicest human and doesn't hold it against me and just helps me. But yeah. Communication is key, but it's also hard. Another aspect of communication that's been kind of hard is talking about spiritual things. Tanner and I feel the Spirit in such different ways and sometimes I feel kind of dumb talking about my feelings because I feel like he won't understand. And also now that we are also supposed to read scriptures together, I usually don't read by myself which is not good because like I said, we each learn differently so I need to feed my own testimony, not just ours together. 

-Kind of going along with that is the inadequacy I feel. Being an adult is just hard on it's own. We have jobs, we have school, and at the same time I'm supposed to be eating healthy and exercising every day and cooking dinner every night and keeping the house clean and doing the laundry and not watching TV for three hours and making it through the day without a nap and paying bills and reading scriptures and writing in my journal, you know. And for some reason this feeling of constant failure was increased after I got married. Because now if I wasn't doing something right, I felt like I wasn't only letting myself down but I was also letting Tanner down. (Which is totally not true, he doesn't care if I don't do the laundry. He really doesn't.) So yeah, self esteem is something I'm also working on. 

-I also feel like since being married I have spent lots of time alone. It's weird just living with us two cuz if Tanner is ever gone, it's just me at home. I don't have three other roommates to choose from to spend time with. And I've lost a lot of friends because we're just in different stages of life and it's just kind of time to move on, which can be hard because it really is just Tanner I have to lean on. But we're going to have married friends soon, I'm sure of it. 

What it all comes down to is expectations. I expect our marriage to be a certain way because of the things I see on social media and blogs. I expect Tanner to surprise me with birthday presents and always plan dates because that's what husbands are "supposed" to do. But I read an awesome article the other day that explained that "Expectations are the mother of all frustration". Which is so true. And although I often expect too much, I'm forever grateful for the marriage that I do have. The feeling I had in the temple when we were sealed together for ALL ETERNITY was indescribable. I know I made the right decision, and I know that our marriage and our family is all that really matters in life. We're still learning how to be married and I'm sure we always will be, but I'm just so glad Tanner chose me to be his wife, he is my everything. 

In other news, it's summer now so woohoooooo. And I've got an endless list of books to read and the list of places I want to visit seems to be growing every day. And we've already gone camping once so I'd say we're off to a good start. And I just got a job working for the Boys and Girls Club. So I just do crafts and play games with kids all day and will probably learn a LOT of patience. The first day the kids come is on Wednesday so wish me luck. We're having a water balloon toss and playing kickball that day- it's going to be awesome. 

Hopefully I'll be posting more soon because I made a goal a while back to write in my journal more and I think I've written like once. Maybe this will be better. But then again I've tried blogging before and we all know how it goes. One of these times it will stick, I'm sure of it. Thanks for reading this, Mom. I love you.

Until next time. Peace out.