New Voices: By and about young adults

Marriage has been on my mind lately, and after my husband read my draft, he was dismayed with how sad it sounded. He went off and wrote how he viewed marriage. I then merged both our ideas as if we were having a conversation. My hope is that you’re able to see how well we complement each other.

Janet: After 10 years, I stand at the crossroads of commitment and honest with battle wounds to show the conflicts we’ve endured. We have carried our struggles mostly in isolation from others, and I’ve hesitated to even share them with my partner.

Roberto: I’ve been learning that it’s one thing to carry on as individuals in marriage and another to be together in this. I suspect that a committed partnership is the most creative relationship on earth and a constant discovery of myself and us as a couple.

J: With 16 sessions of premarital counseling, I believed we were all set for success. But it seems it’s taken 10 years to begin to truly unravel our parents’ relationship and the preconceived ideas we had.

R: Marriage for me has been a chance to know myself more thoroughly: my story, the parental influences and culture—being able to look in the mirror with the qualities and defects of my personal story.

J: And so life brings us back to therapy for awhile, and that’s helpful. The work of marriage keeps us there and gives us tools to move forward in hope that things will be different one day. But for me, the larger question is, What now while we wait for real change within me, within us?

R: I’m humbled in realizing that you cannot put your spouse in a box that defines her and tells me what to expect. I cannot predict or control my partner in this relationship. I receive her as an opportunity to learn how to love. I’ve been learning to let go and hope for the best in her.

J: I’ll be the first to admit that I had this illusion that a husband would meet all my needs—one who, as we were told as little girls, is a knight in shining armor. And I did experience a sense of security being married, but as you fall into the holes you’ve created of larger-than-life expectations, you begin to close your heart. You become protective of what’s within you, and this wall that is created becomes thicker with time.

R: She has helped me know more, experience more grace and self-forgiveness. It’s been a call to openness and knowing each other. I choose to accept and appreciate my wife in all her glory, to rejoice and feel privileged to be at her side. I embrace my vulnerability and empathy.

J: I feel like a novice in all this, but I don’t know what marriage looks like for us. It’s easy to feel lost and duped into believing it is more than it really is. And now I’m putting the pieces together again.

R: Marriage is like jumping out of an airplane in a parachute: You cannot control it, it’s intense and it’s glorious. One never again is the same after jumping into the void.

J: And so today, I find myself in the tension of longing for a deep and meaningful partner relationship, with eyes wide open, seeing who we both are. I’m trying to be honest about our limitations, the limitations of a committed relationship, the give and the take and the “what’s left” for me to meet on my own.

R: I have understood that marriage is not two separate individuals with qualities, needs and flaws that are in the same boat for life. Rather, it’s a relationship with oneself while seeking to birth something together. Being married is more than 1+1. It’s synergy. It’s an intense hurricane on the one hand, and a calm and peaceful morning in the other. Marriage is what we are together. It is a party where I am invited many times in many ways to learn how to love and be loved.

J: And this is why I am with this guy. Even with all my doubts and struggles, he’s exactly what I need because he shows me another way.

Janet Trevino-Elizarraraz lives in San Antonio, Texas. She can be reached at
alpasofirme@gmail.com.