Ever since I've been married, I partially dread a conversation with any of my friends or even anyone who was acquainted with me before my wedding. Invariably, they will ask, "So, how do you like being married?"
There is no answer to this question, really. And there is especially no answer I could give in a sound bite, so I will only say, "great," and hope they don't need anything more.
Sometimes, though, they do, and they will mostly just stare at me after I say "great" with earnestness and curiosity, so I try to answer with my eyes. My eyes should reveal first that the intensity of my happiness occasionally consumes me, so much so that I am often left speechless and overwhelmed, destitute of any clarity.
And then, not wanting to be misleading, I will say with my eyes that there are some other things too, though, that are severally strange and gut-wrenching, that one could never anticipate no matter how many witticisms I might impart.
This is all my eyes are capable of. And since some of my friends aren't especially adept at understanding anything but words, I will fumble at some explanations, because to them, "great" is a slightly curt and rude answer.
Instead of telling the happy part, because they've already read and seen enough of it in movies and books and fairy tales, I try to tell them the real part, sometimes in generalizations and broad statements and sometimes in anecdotes. I've been married for two months and I already have great stories I could send out in mass e-mails with the subject line "Marriage."
Sometimes, I tell people that once you're married, there is no more lying about yourself. We do this often. There are some things about ourselves that we like to believe are true but are not. These are imparted to friends in laundry lists of our traits: "And you know, I'm not like that. I like everything to be straightforward. I tell it like it is." There are so many smallish lies we tell one another, but once married, they are only matters of hilarity.
My wife was in the middle of one of these lies and I started laughing, and she realized why and laughed a little too, embarrassed. Once married, there is no more lying. You have to embrace yourself as you really are.
I often have to apologize to family and friends for not contacting them during the past two months. Like I mentioned, you can forget everything. My parents are a little used to neglect, but my friends, I worry, are hurt or angry.
So I try to explain that I have no more longings for a vibrant social life. All I can think of everyday, coming home after reading in the library or working downtown, is doing nothing with my wife. All I ever want to do is nothing. Finally, I have no more loneliness.
Another thing I often share is that it is hard, nearly impossible, to reveal yourself and all your basest weaknesses to someone else, and reciprocally, that it is also difficult to know someone else's completeness, to understand and embrace all their ugliness. We hide ourselves because we are afraid that the underneath is vile and repulsive.
And, marriage has shown me that it is. I am selfish, hurtful, manipulative, envious, easily provoked, insidious and brutally honest. Because of my mother, I went into marriage with a long list of things I would never do -- let her wash the dishes or the clothes, relegate her domesticity lazily, absently avoid listening to her....
But there is still an infinity of things I do wrong. Marriage, sometimes, is only being knocked on the head with all your badness and inadequacy. But, somehow, amazingly, after your ugliness rears its head, after the terrible secret of your identity has been whispered, there will be a staid and beautiful person there looking into your face, unaffected. And to them, you will be mesmerizing nonetheless.
I am a novice at husbanding, but most people say it gets worse, or boring, and that makes me sad. I will not resign myself to the profane colloquialisms people disseminate about marriage. It is not bossing or being bossed around. It is not disappointment with the physical changes the years bring to your spouse. It is not even about sex or its frequency or infrequency. These are shameful ways to talk and feel about something so holy, so sanct.
I know I don't comprehend all that it is, but that is fine. Everything can't be understood and explained, especially the best and the worst of everything. In the end, perhaps "great" wasn't such a lackluster answer after all.
Really, it is the only answer.
Brad Olson is a senior History major from Huntsville, Texas.
