Marriage: making big decisions
Life is full of choices: small choices, big choices, insignificant choices and choices that change your life.
I don’t know about most people, but after that “most important” decision, I pretty much figured Henry and I would just always be on the same page for the rest of our lives. I mean, that’s why we married each other, right? So it’s been a pretty strange experience for me over the last 9 months. I’ve realized that a lot of the things I thought I had decided have needed to be compromised.
This archived article was written by: Jenna Rae Rudolph
Life is full of choices: small choices, big choices, insignificant choices and choices that change your life.
I don’t know about most people, but after that “most important” decision, I pretty much figured Henry and I would just always be on the same page for the rest of our lives. I mean, that’s why we married each other, right? So it’s been a pretty strange experience for me over the last 9 months. I’ve realized that a lot of the things I thought I had decided have needed to be compromised.
Just so we’re clear, I don’t mean compromising as a bad thing. I’ve discovered that many of the things I thought I wanted aren’t the best things for me or for my marriage. For example, since I was 12, I’ve known I wanted kids as soon as I got married. I’m talking honeymoon babies. But with Henry’s help, I’ve realized that children are a long way off for me. We have a lot of things we’d like to do before committing 18 years to a new life. Besides, Eeyore is enough for us to handle right now.
As it turns out, Henry knows as much about what’s good for us (and me) as I do, even though sometimes my ego doesn’t always want to admit it. So I’m trying really hard to be open minded about the plans I’ve always been kind of set of, like when Henry told me we should take a year off school and move to California. At first I was a bit mortified: another year of putting off school, another year before our bachelors degrees, this seemed like a very silly idea. But the more we talked about it, the more I understood that this was exactly what I wanted – time to chase my dreams with no strings attached. Henry knew this about me even as I was blinded by what I thought I wanted.
The biggest decisions I’ve made in my married life have been very different than what I thought they would be, but just like the decision to spend my life with Henry, I am pleased and excited about all of them.
