7 things I would do differently if I got married again
No one gets married thinking that they're going to get divorced, but maybe we should?
I’ve been really enjoying the 2016 nostalgia trend that’s taken Instagram by storm. It’s been sweet to see everyone’s old, incredibly filtered photographs take on a new life. When do we ever really get a chance to reminisce like this? It’s hard to believe that ten years have passed by so quickly.
Ten years ago, I was a 27-year-old baby, who thought she was way more grown up than she actually was. I was engaged, working a full-time job and getting married. The marriage, house, and kids ladder was the one I set my sights on early in my 20s. My future life was clear and that trajectory had been set.
Since getting married and divorced, my feelings on partnership honestly haven’t really changed. I’ve always been a long-term relationship person, but I feel like I’ve really grown the most in my singlehood.
I can see where divorced people want to avoid a second marriage at all costs, or where they run barrelling into a new one. There is no right or wrong way to do these things at the end of the day. We’re all so different and our relationships teach us different things about each other and ourselves.
But in the spirit of 2016 nostalgia, baby Nicole and a hell of a lot of hindsight, I wanted to reflect on the things I would do differently if I were to get married again.
1. Attend pre-marriage couples counselling
I loved my first husband very much, and in most marriages, I don’t think love is ever really the problem. At some point I stopped communicating my needs, I stopped knowing how to communicate at all, and found myself not seeing his point of view. One of my favourite relationship questions is “do you value the relationship more than being right?”
I’d get wrapped up in being right and righteous, and I’d lose my way. Ultimately I’d forgotten what I was doing this all for. I think going to counselling when we were thinking of getting married would’ve helped us a lot. It would’ve helped us know why we wanted to get married in the first place, we could’ve shaped what we wanted our marriage to look like in the future, we could’ve been more open about our fears and desires. Most of us could do with outside support and an external view into our relationships before we are at critical breaking point. Prevention is better than cure.
2. Know when and how to apologise
As I was so fixated on being right and being righteous about it, letting go of that habit has meant knowing when to take accountability for causing pain, however unintentional, and apologising for it. Whether you are right or wrong, when feelings are hurt, the apology is worth way more than the damage a lack of one does in the long run.
What if, more often than not, we gave each other the benefit of the doubt?
3. Tell the truth
So much of the pain that I felt in my marriage was because I wasn’t able to be honest with myself and in turn, my husband. I began to fear the truth more than how it made me feel, and put myself in a prison of made up scenarios. I ended up giving myself anxiety about things that hadn’t even happened just because I wasn’t able to admit that I was unhappy.
I had become so good at pretending that I couldn’t even tell when I was doing it anymore. It took many years of therapy to untangle all of that, and more importantly, break down my idea of being a Good Person™.
None of that remotely matters if you can’t be honest with yourself.
4. Have hard and uncomfortable conversations
Everything we tend to shy away from due to embarrassment or fear are all of the things that should be spoken about before getting married and regularly. Sex, finances, debt, property ownership, children, families.
How often do you want to have sex? What happens if the other person cheats? What counts as cheating? Should we get a pre-nup? When do we want to retire? What happens if we get sick? What happens if our parents get sick? What happens when we die?
These are the kinds of questions 27-year-old me would’ve been terrified of. The discomfort of endings and the possibility of saying the wrong thing was too overwhelming, but now I feel more than happy getting all of that out in the open.
5. Pay attention and stay curious
I don’t think we need to be fully healed or do trauma work in order for our relationships to be in the best possible place, but the art of loving has always been in staying open, paying attention to each other’s needs and staying curious about our needs and desires.
One of the ways relationships are chipped away at over time is feeling as though the other person doesn’t see us, or as if they don’t care.
We have to want to know each other (and ourselves) inside and out.
6. Ask yourself, “what if nothing changes?”
The major turning point for me was understanding that change is inevitable in every relationship. People change, our dreams change, our attitudes and ambitions change, our feelings change. They say you shouldn’t get married to the person they are now, but who you can see yourself married to in the future.
But for me, it was more a question of, “how would I feel if nothing ever changed?” And I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle that long term.
7. Know that marriage is work
Some of that work is easy. Some of it’s hard. Some of it takes compromise. Sometimes it means having to lose or change parts of ourselves. I don’t think it’s a matter of losing ourselves entirely in the other person or in the relationship, but I think the individualistic nature of society has led us to believe that two people coming together means accepting others fully as they are, no sacrifice. But relationships have always been about give and take, and we do owe it to ourselves and each other to show up in our relationships in the best way we can. We must at least make the attempt.
About me: I’m Nicole, the writer of A Crumb of Romance. I’m the co-author of The Half of It: Exploring the Mixed-Race Experience, a content creator and the co-host of the award-winning Mixed Up podcast. Having been chronically online since the age of 13, you can also find me on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest.