Venusian on Mars

I saw a friend recently recommend the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" on the good old facebook and it started me thinking about relationships and why sometimes it really does feel like we're speaking a different language. 

About a year ago a kind friend sent me the book "The Five Love Languages" to read. (Take the test!) My husband seems to be rather skeptical about books like this (which I find odd: he did his degree in psychology!) but I see real benefit if only because it makes you meditate on ways to put in more effort to try and make your spouse or partner happy. Paying more attention to it must help, I'm sure. 

It's kind of crazy that despite the attraction men and women have to each other, we also drive each other mad. I know that in our marriage, there are things that Ben does that baffle me completely and vice versa. Most of the time when there is any hurt between us it's because of a lack of understanding. Often, with us, it's because we're both too stubborn to relinquish our point in favour of making things right again. We want to be right and loved. This thirst for love without meeting the conditions puts us in a constant battle of wits.... please tell me it's not just us!

Fortunately, I know it isn't! While it's never a great thing to be in constant conflict with each other I'm also aware that marriage is something you have to work at. When I look around me I realise that the marriages that are an example to me aren't necessarily the ones where everything seems easy and life is always a blast. The marriages I admire are the ones in which things go wrong but two people work together, regardless, to achieve happiness. 

I read a magazine article this week about fidelity and how it just doesn't happen anymore. (Now, let me justify myself: I rarely buy magazines; this was purely about a delicious shade of nails inc they were giving away. I had no choice. I had to get it. Twice.). It was a trashy article with some shocking statistics which I've convinced myself can't possibly be true. I know a lot of people are unfaithful but 50% of men? 39% of women? It just seems like a lot. Then again, it seems to make sense because there is a terrifying trend in the world for people to be so concerned with what they personally are getting to fulfill themselves that many people seem to have lost something of the tenderness that was once felt for the people around them. If "something for nothing" is the aim then that certainly seems to be achieved by being able to have a comfortable and safe relationship whilst getting to still have a single life of no responsibility too. 

I get that relationships are difficult. Apparently "It's a man's world" so if women are from Venus then we have found ourselves in a world foreign to us. I definitely know that sometimes Ben and I can be talking about the same thing and yet somehow mistake the conversation completely. The most classical example I can think of that I'm sure we all relate to is when women turn to their partner for support after having a tough day and what he does is come up with solutions. It's all totally valid but a woman walks away feeling misunderstood and alone in her worries and the man walks away confused that she's not taking on board the practical advice. 

After all this, it's worth it. Over the past year I've seen so many people making huge decisions about their life partner and I've made that decision myself. It's a momentous decision and one that can't be taken more seriously. 

I've heard people say before that when you choose to marry someone it's less about the fabulous list of traits that you just can't live without; it's about working out which of the bad traits you can live with. I saw this before as a wise thing to say and now I realise the stupidity of it. The worse traits for you, when you are married, are going to be the undesirable ones that you see in your partner right now. You are never going to think, "well, I chose him because at least he didn't do that annoying thing that so-and-so did".  

I'm so far from perfection but it's encouraging to me that I'm married to someone who is better every day than he was the day before. He inspires me because he was incredible anyway- I just hope I can catch up with him! No, he doesn't speak Venusian and I doubt that he ever will. There are going to be times that he'll look at me like I'm crazy and I'll feel like I'm not understood. Equally, there will be times when I say something in a way that he feels is just not the right way to say it on Mars. 

On Saturday Ben and I will have been married for three months. It's been a beautiful, heart-wrenching, perfect, difficult, joyful time. I'm grateful to the friends we've spent time with and the family that have been a support to us. I'm grateful that I've had a fellow Venusian to speak to whenever I needed to vent and be reminded how lucky I am! 

Most of all: I'm proud of where we are now and how far we've come over that three months in terms of cooking abilities, the memories we've made, changes we've put in place and foundations we've built. Life is so rewarding - especially right now. 

I love our differences and I'm hoping that we keep trying to learn how to bring out the strengths that we see in each other. Marriage is wonderful not because it's easy but because sometimes it is through the contrast that we learn who we really are and learn to become who we really want to be. By standing together we become more than we are. Plus, it's just much more fun that way!