Are you planning a wedding or a marriage?
I remember reading an Instagram post from Michelle Obama suggesting to newly engaged couples to focus on planning a marriage not a wedding. I totally prescribe. The idea of once you get married you become an old boring couple sounds horrible to me. Yet somehow society has us believing that once you are married you will live in this dream of happily ever after. I am sorry but the stats say 42% of New Zealand marriages end in divorce.
Talking to my parents who have been married 35 years, Dad say’s “it’s hard and worth it.” So where did we go so wrong in thinking marriage is like a fairytale with the happily ever after? The thing with happiness is like any emotion it ebbs and flows. Think about it - when you are first engaged you are in this love bubble that seems impossible to pop, then what do you know: your fiancés annoying habits seem to creep back in.
As our celebrant shared with us it takes 20 years to truly get to know someone. This makes me think that marriage has got to be about learning about each and growing to embrace those learnings.
For us, we have taken the planning for marriage approach and I can say after being engaged for 9 months I loved our relationship more than the day we got engaged. So how did we do it?
We went on engagement growth and learning dates.
These are dates where we might go out for dinner, go for a walk or even talk while in the car. We created time to chat about relationship and what we are learning. Here are our three go to questions:
1. What have I learnt about you in the last 3 months?
2. What have I learnt about myself in the last 3 months?
3. What have I learnt about our relationship in the last 3 months?
Other questions we might ask are how do you think wedding planning is going and what would you like more of in our engagement?
You might be thinking “Francie there is no way I can convince my fiancé to have these type of dates”. My advice is start small and pick a nice easy question to ask your fiancé one night you are having dinner. It might be “we have been engaged for three months now and what is it like for you?” if the response is simply fine rather than be disappointed share a response you want from your fiancé, as cliché as it is you need to be the change you want to see.
You have made it to the end of my wedding planning blogs. I would love to know, did you find them helpful? I am looking to start offering relationship coaching for couples and would love to know what would help your engagement, marriage and relationship thrive.