Seattle Mini-Mini-Moon: What to Take Away

If I've learned nothing else in my four weeks of marriage - and twenty-seven years of life - it's that if you have a good experience, then just celebrate it and remember it. If you have a bad experience - well, then, you better find something you can learn from it...

So, here's what I took away from our mini-mini-moon weekend:

1. A wedding band doesn't change people.
Just because you go through a wedding ceremony and shove a ring on a boy's finger, doesn't mean he's going to instantaneously morph into a perfect husband. NavyGuy is very mature and is a wonderful husband, but he's not markedly different than he was a month ago - most of the time he's smart and makes good choices, but every so often, he does stupid things. Us getting married didn't change him into a different, better person, anymore than it changed me into a perfect little housewife - we're both going to screw up sometimes and that's why...
2. Getting mad is okay, but...
You have to figure out what you're really mad about. I wasn't mad that NavyGuy went out with his friends, or that he drank, or even that he was out really late. None of those things would have bothered me on any other weekend. It took almost an hour of me lying in bed unable to fall asleep that night to figure out what I was actually mad about - I was mad that he had ruined our special weekend, and I was disappointed that he had made the choices he did. By choosing to go out and get drunk with his friends, I felt like he was saying our celebration weekend wasn't as important to him. Once he sobered up the next day, and we had a chance to talk things out, I knew he didn't value our weekend any less than I - he just screwed up.
3. Take Inventory, Think Big Picture, Move On.
At the end of the day, I still love NavyGuy. Yes, he made me mad and he disappointed me. But he apologized sincerely and felt wretched about the whole event. We both know he can't totally "make up" for what happened, nor would it be right for me to "punish him" for weeks on end (though he will be coming to a pottery class with me next week...). If I take stock of the situation, he didn't break my heart, he didn't hurt me irrevocably - he made a mistake that he won't make again. Big picture? This isn't the end of the world. So, it's time to move on.

We've both learned our lessons - as we head to Boston this weekend for a wedding of two good friends, I will make sure to give NavyGuy clear expectations about how I'd like the weekend to go, and he will channel his inner Puritan and have a dry weekend! :)