We got married a little over 10 years ago, but we still remember sorting through the array of gifts afterwards. We made stacks and categories (because that’s pretty much our approach to life, honestly).There were gifts from our registry, gifts that were heartfelt, gifts that were made of crystal, gifts that were made of fake crystal and – everyone’s favorite – gifts that were clearly left over after our friends’ recent weddings.
It should be said that we are not philosophically opposed to re-gifting – we’ve done it, hopefully with style, more than once. But this particular stack of re-gifts was largely composed of books about marriage…books about marriage that our newlywed friends had already determined were completely useless to them. There’s something wrong with that picture.
How could young newlyweds like us glean nothing from this impressive collection of supposed marriage wisdom? It’s pretty simple, really. Almost every single book in that stack seemed to be written for someone else: Our marriage was not in trouble. We had no real interest in sappy exercises. Phrases like “head of household” and “submit” caused convulsions. And let’s be honest, the book jackets were particularly awful…like some strange combination of romance novels, puritanical dress codes and Thomas Kincaid. We pretty much just shoved the whole stack into our unreasonably small closet.
Since then, we’ve seen strong marriages crumble and seemingly vulnerable marriages flourish. We have seen young couples desperate for wisdom and people in decades-long relationships looking for the exact same thing. Over time, it seemed more and more problematic that no marriage resources felt relevant or rang true. With all the resources out there, you would think there would be something that merited more than re-gifting, something that we wanted to keep on our shelf.
So we decided to start this blog. We’re attempting to create the resource we wished we had. At Weddedness you’ll find stories straight from our experiences in 10 years of marriage; we also take a look at research, books, and pop culture to find stuff and stories we like and you might too.
We don’t need marriage advice. What everyone we know that’s in a relationship craves is real stories that are filled with honesty and humor and frustration and optimism and embarrassment and hope. (Actually, most folks we know that aren’t in a relationship crave those stories too.) Hopefully, that perspective appeals to you. If not, there’s a stack of dusty books in the corner that you’re welcome to look through some weekend.
Now, do you want to know what we mean by Weddedness? Check out this post.
