before i got married, i solicited the advice of a lot of my married friends in order to prepare my very best for this new role i was assuming. i am completely grateful for all of their honest advice, but it has only taken me a few short months to realize that no two marriages look alike. we’re all snowflakes, or something.

anyway, one of the biggest things i’ve learned is that even though i am a woman, i may not fit into the stereotypical wife role. sometimes it feels pretty natural, but often it feels like i’m trying to fit one of those damn wooden triangles into a square hole. and i’m learning to celebrate that. and my husband? not exactly what you see on tv. it’s almost hilarious how poorly we measure up to what the world thinks we’re supposed to be, simply because of what gender we are.

so here are some ways that my marriage looks different than yours does. and this is me celebrating.

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my husband is cleaner than i am || i used to think i was a neat-freak, but it turns out that really just means i like to put dishes away. my side of the bed/bedroom/couch/everything is constantly crowded with clothes and books and shoes and unmentionables, and Jared’s side is usually flawless. okay sometimes there’s a sock. HE IS SO CLEAN. i don’t get it.

i care about our finances too || each month Jared and i sit down and discuss our budget. we talk about what went wrong last month and how we can do better this month. we use an online tool to help us categorize our spending so we can keep track of our trends and figure out ways to improve. and i love it! it’s kind of like a game to me, stretching every penny to make sure it counts. i know a lot of women who let their husbands handle the money so they don’t have to know what’s going on. sharing money is hard, but we both like it. we both have a say in where it goes, we both have to apologize when we go over. everything is shared — income and debt. so when one of us messes up, we both mess up. and when one of us makes a wise choice, we both win.

my husband is not a good-for-nothing-dummy like the media tries to say men are || for every one time i take our dog outside to go potty, Jared has taken him out twenty times. he doesn’t sit in a recliner with a beer in his hand from 5:00pm until bedtime. he loves to vacuum unprompted, he remembers to put a paper towel over soup when he’s warming it up in the microwave, and he knows so much about so many things. he contributes to the progress of our family, and he isn’t good for nothing.

i hate talking on the phone, and my husband could dominate you with the minutes he uses each month || we had to increase our minutes on our cell phone plan because he loves to talk to his friends who live in far away places. sometimes the conversations last for hours! and me? can’t handle the thought of it. i really hate the entire experience; not seeing who i’m talking to, not being able to sit in silence, the awkward “okay talk to you later — oh wait, what did you say?”…it stresses me out. but not Jared. you can call him and he’ll tell you all about it.

my husband loves to cook and has never expected dinner to be ready as soon as he comes home || i have several aprons. i’ve never worn any of them. i really do love to cook, and i think it is because i never feel like it’s something i’m supposed to do. we both go grocery shopping and pick out what we need, and we both come up with meal ideas. we make decisions together about what to eat each night, we both help make it, and we both eat it. and we both put away the leftovers.

i hate the word ‘submit’ || my husband will never lord it over me that “he’s the man and he said so” and that’s because i am a human being. we treat each other as equals; we each lead, we each submit, we each compromise. because that’s marriage to us; we don’t think either of us is less or more important based on our gender. we both have to be selfless, and we both have opinions that need to be expressed.

‘mean girls’ is in my husband’s top five || we watch rom/coms very often in this house, and it isn’t always something i initiate. ’nuff said.

people keep telling me that marriage is a lot of work. they say that the first year is by far the hardest, that the transition is, at times, unbearably painful, and that being married to someone else is going to leave me breathless, exhausted, and sometimes even questioning if i’ve made the right decision.

as you may expect, these precautions are leaving me with a healthy dose of fear and trembling.

it’s like they want me to be waiting for ‘the other shoe to drop’, like they will quietly giggle as they watch me live in anxiety, checking every corner to find brokenness in my marriage. they scorn my naivete and constantly tell me ‘oh just you wait’ and my paranoia grows and grows. and they strip the joy out of marriage, simply because theirs has been hard and i frankly don’t know any better. they tell me that simple love lasts only through the honeymoon and then it’s all over over over.

well, on that i call bullshit.

i am an incurable optimist; i tell my students this all the time. i believe in the good and i believe in change. and i’m as stubborn as they ever come — persuasive and persistent to no end. because i never want to not believe in the good.

of course i understand it will be difficult at times. LIFE is difficult at times. but the difference between healthy love and unhealthy love is this: healthy love is hard work + simple. unhealthy love is hard work + complicated.

and every day marriage is a choice.

and just because yours is hard, does not mean mine will be.

please do not speak such lies over my marriage, over my heart, over my life. your promise of my failure only looms like a storm that is unpredictable and scary.

and i am not scared.

i am sure.

and in 39 days [but who's counting?] i will be able to test out my own stubborn sure-ness, and i am not going to do it while waiting for my own failure to choke me. day by day, the air of freedom will fill my lungs.

i can hardly wait.