Are You Jealous of the Bride?

Editor's Note: Today marks the beginning of Catholic Marriage Week, an important part of National Marriage Week! We will be publishing posts that celebrate the beauty of marriage from now until February 14th. Stay tuned!

I was re-reading a post by my colleague and former editor, Robyn Lee, about how she felt about her best friend's wedding.

When you are single, she says, it's hard to go to these things and not think of the wedding that is not taking place—yours.

Robyn's reflections made me think of my own marriage 28 years ago. I want to offer a view from the other side.

A view from the other side

I married young—age 22. Two days after the wedding, we moved to Austria so my husband could finish graduate school nearby. Our first child, a little girl, was born just nine and a half months later.

Pretty nice, right? Yes, it was. Perhaps this would be a good place for a kiss and a fade out. But that's not how marriage works. Works being the operative word. This is only the beginning of the story.

After the honeymoon, we settled down quickly. He had a degree to finish in a short period of time. I had a baby coming and all the fatigue, mood swings, and sickness that comes with it. Most days he was at school studying and I was cooped up in the apartment, alone, barfing.

When I did venture out, I was alone again—only way out of my comfort zone in a foreign country. I had very little understanding of the culture or the language. Necessity made me a fast learner but there were still moments of dire vulnerability.

What that bus ride taught me

Once, I caught a bus that was doing a school run. (There were no "school" buses. Everybody took the public ones.) As soon as a hoard of teenagers boarded after me, I realized my mistake. They were all talking loudly at once. No one paid attention to me which was how I liked it. For all they knew I could have been a one of them except for one thing—I was green.

As the ride bumped and wound its way through the Alps, my breakfast rallied for its freedom. What if somebody noticed and they all turned on me? What would I say? Besides...not much. I contemplated my options.

I couldn't just get off since I might be stranded. I couldn't ask the driver for help since it would blow my cover. I couldn't just barf and get it over with since I had nothing to put my half-digested breakfast in but a backpack full of books. I would just have to endure, praying to God and all the saints who handle these things to get me to my destination and a private little corner with a drain in it. This they did, proving themselves true friends and also verifying that, "Where is the bathroom?" is the absolutely first phrase you should learn in any foreign language.

Thus the realities of family life hit me—all before our wedding photos were even developed.

The cassette letter

Sometime during that period, two of my childhood girlfriends sent me a cassette letter catching me up on their doings. They were both a year younger than I. They were still in college, dating, going to parties, going home to Mom and Dad on weekends, hitting them up for money, and planning their exciting careers.

Cooped up in my apartment, I was lonely for friends so it cheered me up to hear their voices. At one point, they made me laugh out loud when they both said with wistfulness in their voices:

"You're so lucky!"

I wondered: Do I tell them my latest adventure was learning to order meat?

I didn't tell them. That's why I'm saying it now.

Yes, I had found love. Yes, it was good. Very good.

BUT the fact was, a part of me envied them.

Even though I was raised well and taught that marriage was a vocation, a way to heaven, a path of self denial, I gotta say—I just didn't have a visual on how that would apply to me. I expected, instead, a Disney movie version of marriage, as a state of perpetual togetherness, comfort, and fulfillment.

I think a lot of people (okay, women) have that expectation.

It is natural to be jealous of a bride.

You see her at her best and most beautiful. And that is how it should be. Her life is just beginning and it's a grand calling.

But next time you see her, you should know that that grand calling will require much from her. If, in ten months, she sends out the adorable baby announcement, realize that the stork did not bring that baby. She did. And it cost her plenty: her health, her energy, her time, her looks, her figure, her emotional balance, maybe even a few teeth. She donated it all to bring that little person into the world.

Does she regret it? No. Would she do it all again? Yes. She often does. She will be in an even more intense labor with all her children for many years to come as she helps to give them spiritual birth.

There is so much more to people's lives than just what we see in their glossy Facebook photos. Your bride friend's happiness wasn't produced in a day—the day when she was radiant in her bridal splendor.

Marriage is not a one step recipe: just add a wedding.

It's so much more. So much so that Jesus made marriage a sacrament. He knew that the couple would need the grace because there would be a lot of challenges. It never occurred to me that giving up my singleness would be one of them.

If your best friend gets married this year, be happy for her. But don't think her life automatically just got easier than yours. She will have her own struggles, new struggles that she is not used to. So keep your prayers and friendship coming. They will mean more to her than ever.

And if you chance to go on an adventure, send her a postcard.