just. annoyed.

Somehow this ridiculous blog made it onto a news site.

I don't think something this crazy really needs criticism. It's one of those writings where those who are predisposed to believe it will drink it down and spread it around fb as this GREAT new thing they are reading!!!!11!!! and those who aren't already in that mindset... won't.

It's not like what I'm writing is going to be some great revelation or change something.

I'm just hella ANNOYED.

Because guys. GUYS.

He starts the piece with "Two years ago, the cutest girl in Indiana was taken off the market! "

Yeeeah.

Let's all take marriage advice from the guy who has been married two years.

That's not even the bad part. "The cutest girl" and "taken off the market!"

Eeeeew. Let's just start a marriage advice post by objectifying your wife and making it sound like you acquired her in a particularly lucrative deal.

JUST EEEEEW.

I know that sometimes those things are just "sayings" but they scream disrespect. My Man has been around those sayings plenty and never once, not in conversation OR a (hopefully) thought out written piece has he EVER said something like that about me.

Combine that with the rest of the piece and here's what you get:

(allow me to translate the christian-ese for you)

"OMG! Being married is harder than I thought - even though I married the HOTTEST girl! Somehow that isn't quite enough! And since I'm a Christian, we don't actually RESPECT each other - not without Jesus FORCING us to. BUT NO WORRIES! Because we have COMMITMENT. That my wife is committed to me is all I need to know about her! And her hotness when I bought her - I mean married her! Because that's way more important than whether we even are compatible or like each other because, ya know, Jesus conquers ALL. Even sucky marriages. Because society can't give us solutions for any marriage problems! Oh, and trust me. I've been married for two years."

That last line he actually says. ("Trust me. I know. Because I've been married, two years now, to a girl who has relentlessly committed to this task with me.")

And then the false dichotomy he creates, making it sound like the secular world ("by society's standards") is the one that tells people they need/deserve/can find a super spouse. HA. Because Christians TOTES don't do that!

Aaaaahhaahahahahahahah!

AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAH!

Guys. GUYS. I just can NOT STAND IT.

Okay, I get the gist of what he is saying. No one is perfect. No marriage is perfect. And some people have their sights set a little too high and that's gonna come back to bite them in the butt. Probably for this guy and his wife this really IS a huge step in the right direction. And I know that when we married at the absurd age of 20 that we didn't have a full grasp of the realities of daily life with another person.

But there are a million other blogs that say that with much more intelligence, clarity and kindness to others who have a different experience. Someone who doesn't talk about his spouse like they are a piece of meat. Whose two freakin years of marriage haven't given them the impression they have the answer for everyone. Someone who is smart enough not to say that there are two kinds of people: "...wrong people who pretend to be right, and wrong people who are becoming right, through Jesus."

I have two friends who are a-religious and both married 40-some years. They speak in terms of soulmates, true loves and such things that this young man claims do not exist. And when I ask what their secret is they laugh and you know that, no matter the hard times, loving this person has been easy and right and beautiful and they tell me "I married my best friend, we respect each other" and one added "we never swear at each other!" This is just a tiny sampling of just people I know whose lives refute his certainty.

If believing that his marriage will always be hard work and that lowering his ideals is the only way to be happy, then good for him.

Some people don't have to live in that mental place, and are happy for 40+ years.

I can't even BEGIN to explain how much better, how much easier it was and how much more confident I became that I more than married the RIGHT one - I married a true friend, lover and soulmate - AFTER I let go of just the ideas and ideals this blogger promotes for everyone ("whether you buy the biblical view of marriage or not") and just approached our marriage as ours and cared for it as I would something beautiful, transcendent and oh so VERY "right." But that's me. That's US.

So go ahead, write what you know.

But when you're tempted to make it sound like you've found THE solution, and demand people trust you because you've been married two years?

STFU.