I write this today with two particular young women in mind. One is my niece who is marrying in May and one is our fabulous nanny who is marrying today. The nanny, who is now a teacher, was a student in college when we met and she came to babysit one night a week and found herself working 3-4 while I went through treatment for cancer. She became a sister to our girls and I am forever grateful. The niece is a successful young woman in a major east coast city and I met her when she was 4 she has been a light in our life as is her brother and they have always been fantastic with their much younger cousins. I was thinking about these two who are marrying almost exactly 2 months apart and then my own girls and thought about what advice I would give them about marriage.
Remember you always have a choice of how you live your life–positive or negative–choose the positive as there are enough things that will try to knock that apart without your helping it.
Sometimes love is about what you don’t say. This advice is from my husband. I am not saying to sit on bad behavior but sometimes it is good to let the small things go or at least wait a day for a quiet time to have the conversation. And never begin with “You Always.”
Apologize for your part in it. Always take responsibility for your actions. Realize that ,whatever you meant to do, you have to deal with the reaction to what you did. Sometimes apologizing is what begins the discussion to an even better place.
Sometimes it is better to go to bed mad than say something you regret. Wait until cooler heads prevail.
My friend Cathy went to meet her minister with her soon to be husband and he said,” I hope this isn’t the best day of your life.” Truly–I agree–I hope it is a great one with wonderful memorie made and all going swimmingly but I hope there is always a better day ahead.
I love my husband more today then when I married him and couldn’t imagine loving anyone more–I hope this for you too.
About the day—There is only one thing that needs to happen and only one thing of importance–so when you wake put it all out of your head–don’t worry about the flowers, the band, Aunt Marge drinking too much and making a pass at the best man–put all of it aside. And when you get ready to walk down the aisle, take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then look ahead and remember all that matters is the man at the end of the aisle and the profound promise you are making to each other. I wish you only better and no worse but unfortunately you still have to pay taxes and drive in traffic but hopefully this will be an amazing day and you will know in your heart of hearts that you promised more than you ever imagined and that it only gets better from here.
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