Let me start off by saying, you cannot always believe what you hear about marriage. When I look back planning for my wedding and what people were telling me about marriage, I think half of them are crazy! Some of them idealized marriage to me, and they were just plain wrong! Not that my marriage is bad, but it is not a fairy tale story like some of them talked it up to be either. Here is my take on a few of the myths about marriage.

Who you marry is the most important choice of your life. Yes, who you marry is important, but choosing to pour into your marriage is even more important. You choose whether or not to love your spouse. Marriage is not simple. Love is more than a feeling, and it takes work, sometimes lots of work!

My wedding day is the most important day of my life. Some even say you will never feel as much love from your spouse as you do on your wedding day. This idea is simply not true. Your wedding day is just one day out of your entire marriage. Marriages change and grow in seasons. They do not remain the same, so do not leave your marriage in the past on your wedding day. My marriage has grown even better over the years, so I would not want to keep my marriage the same as it was on my wedding day.

Once you get married, everything changes. Actually, lots of things stay the same. My spouse is still the same guy I married years ago. It is actually quite hard to change a person and getting married does not change that fact either. Some things have changed, but we are mostly the same as when we got married.

Fighting is the first step towards divorce. If you do not fight, then you can never resolve an issue. Fighting in relationships is healthy as long as it is done with an appropriate method. Usually when my husband and I fight, it ends up bringing us closer together because we typically are not fighting against each other, so when we join together to fight the problem, it often makes our marriage better.

Marriage completes me. This statement is quite powerful. It implies that your marriage does not exist with God at the center of it. Marriage cannot be the end all be all of life. If this statement is true, you will be left unfulfilled. My spouse will lets me down, and if he is meant to complete me, then I will often be left discouraged. Your spouse can encourage and spur you on, but thinking of marriage this way can cause unrealistic expectations for your marriage and your spouse. My husband is not a genie in a bottle that I can rub to get whatever I want, whenever you want it (I wish!). However, God should be at the center of your marriage because God is the only thing that can complete your life. So to say that marriage completes you is a bit of a stretch.

After you get married, sex is boring and sparse. People that make this comment think that sex needs to be new and exciting every single time. Not only can married sex often be new and exciting, it can also be more passionate and intimate. This kind of sex leads to a more fulfilling and pleasurable sex life. Spousal sex can allow you to become more vulnerable. Therefore, leading to a better sexual experience with your spouse. Like anything in marriage, sex takes work, but with the right amount of effort, marital sex is better than any other kind.

Your marriage may change and grow, but your commitment and dedication should always remain the same, so let go of the myths and get on with your marriage!

Photo credit: Ryan Smith Photography via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND