Revised Marriage Vows--for real life

When we get married, we vow to love, honor, cherish/obey, until death do us part.  If we’re creative, original types (not like myself and my husband), we write our own vows and talk about how much the other means to us.  Then, we get down to the real business of marriage.  How often do we think of those vows?  Sometimes, in moments of real crisis or real bliss, we might remember them.  How often do they impact our daily life?  

Quite often in my personal life, it’s not the big deal things that cause problems.  In moments of crisis, it is clear what is on the line.  If big deal things happen, infidelity, betrayal, big, big lies, you know what your choices are--to learn to forgive and work on the relationship, or to move on without the person.  You think of the vows.  And you make a decision.

Marriage is difficult.  Life is fraught with daily, annoyances and frustrations.  When you live by yourself and you lock yourself out of the house, the only person to blame is you.  When you live with another person, it is so tempting to blame the other for careless mistakes, for not being “nice enough”, for not being _______ (fill in the blank).  It is tempting to make a scapegoat out of a spouse.  We can be quite creative in this:  “If you hadn’t done the laundry last night, I wouldn’t have ruined the flash drive containing my important presentation that I left in my pants.”  It is the daily life of marriage and the little moments that lead up to the big crises.  It is the small, impatient comments, harbored resentment, and plain frustration with daily life that lead to attrition, to turning elsewhere for comfort, to wanting to escape your life.   

We can never know what life holds in store for us and we get married with the best of intentions.  In my life, it’s worked out very well, even with the challenging moments.  But, I think that if a marriage ceremony were about the real challenges of marriage, the vows would be quite a bit different.  After 12 years of marriage, I wonder about the vows my husband and I could write now.   Here is my idea:

• I vow to tell you what I need, not make you guess and then get angry when you get it wrong.
• I vow to understand if you can’t give me what I need, at that exact moment.  
• I vow not to expect you to fix all my problems, and not to try to fix all of yours.
• I vow to give you space when you need it.  It’s OK if we do not go on picture-perfect family outings every weekend.  It’s OK if you go off to golf and I go off to ride.  It’s OK if our “family time” is cuddling with the kids on the bed during a power outage.
• I vow to not keep score.  It might feel like I’m doing the lion’s share of the work, but that’s because I’m not paying attention when you’re aerating the lawn and fixing the kitchen sink (because I’m too busy doing the laundry and chasing the kids around).
• I vow not to hide, my money, my feelings, my dirty clothes (because they smell after a while).
• I vow to try not to place blame, even when you forget to close the freezer door, or leave the car ignition on, or forget to clean out a lunch box that results in a million fruit flies in the house.
• I vow that if I can’t help but to place blame, I will not hold grudges and I will approach accidental mistakes with humor.
• I vow to be patient, even when I want to bite your head off.
• I vow to listen, even when I’ve heard a similar story a million times before.  It might be boring, but you need to tell it.
• I vow to recognize the different ways you show your love, like building a new bathroom, or writing a blog, or waking up in the morning with the kids, or mowing the lawn.
• I vow to pay attention, to what you say, to what you do, to what you need.