married life, day 81

people have asked, more times than i would have imagined in the last 81 days, what it's like to be married and if it feels any different than before.  this question has come from married and non-married people and most of them have either felt themselves or heard somewhere that it doesn't really feel too different than being engaged.  then why do so many people ask?

i've thought about it a lot in the past almost three months and slowly but surely something does start to feel different.  there are the obvious things like it lasts forever, you took serious vows, you can fully merge your lives and plan a long future, but those things aren't really very different than what you'd been planning since getting engaged.  and i think i have finally put my finger on that deep down feeling that is different than before: eric and i are now family.  i loved him and wanted him to be my family before, but you're not family until you're family, you know?  "blood is thicker than water" as everyone i'm related to likes to say.

ok, yes, so i knew that getting married immediately makes you family :)  that's great! you get babies, you stay together forever, in sickness and health, it's a fairytale!  and it's a wonderful fairytale that is a gift that keeps on giving every single day!

but what about the other side of the fairy tale?  what about annoying the shit out of each other?  what about getting drunk and embarrassing each other? or what about in the future when someone loses a job, or gets depressed, or any number of things that can suck about being human?

well these things happen in any relationship, right?  and at some point in all the other relationships, you or the other person became not fun enough that you called it quits.  you still think they are great and want them to be happy, just with someone else.  but with marriage you say "i don't care how screwed up you are, or i am, you don't get to choose your family and life isn't long enough for you to ever get enough time with them, so you better just love your brother mom dad husband because there is nothing you can do to change it".

i. love. this.

this loyalty to a fault that is reserved only for those with whom i share blood or a lifetime of friendship.  this deep compassion and empathy and defense for someone even when they are wrong.  this is familial love.  this is marriage.  i loved him before, but this familial love is what has decided to develop and root inside of me. 

everyone is a little bit weird, in good ways and in bad, and luckily at some point you get to be a with a person that has seen you at every point on the spectrum of mental health and loves you anyway.  because he has to :) and i have to, too.

and that's what feels different about being married.