It’s not perfect. It’s real .
Expecting your spouse to read your mind, meet your every emotional need, and never disappoint you is a recipe for resentment. Instead, hold yourself to a high standard (kindness, honesty, effort) and extend your spouse grace when they fall short.
A bad fight doesn’t destroy a marriage. Refusing to say “I was wrong,” “I’m sorry,” or “I see your pain” is what does the damage. Learn to come back to each other. Quickly. Even when it’s awkward. The “perfect” couples on Instagram do everything together. But in real life, suffocation isn’t romance—it’s a warning sign.
I thought if my marriage was “right,” we wouldn’t fight. I thought we’d always want the same things at the same time. I thought love alone would smooth over every crack before it became a canyon.
It’s choosing the same person over and over—even on the days when they annoy you, even on the days when you feel distant, even on the days when “love” feels more like a verb than a feeling.
But after a decade of marriage—through job losses, sleepless newborn nights, a global pandemic in close quarters, and the slow, unglamorous work of becoming two different people than the ones who said “I do”—I’ve realized something counterintuitive:
What the Fairy Tales Get Wrong Fairy tales end at the wedding. Real life starts there.