Jo Piazza was a globetrotting single girl up until last year, when a hot eco hero from San Fran swept her off her feet…now, she's doing ...
Jo Piazza was a globetrotting single girl up until last year, when a hot eco hero from San Fran swept her off her feet…now, she's doing what any smart-phone toting millennial-ish new wife would—crowdsourcing marriage advice so she doesn't eff it up!
All married people love to tell newlyweds that marriage is hard work.
They never explain why exactly, preferring instead to force each newly married human to figure it out on their own as a hazing ritual necessary to enter the exclusive club of matrimony. After 20 years of dating all the wrong men, at age 34, I finally met my husband.
It was a perfect whirlwind romance. He proposed on top of a mountain (seriously) after just three months and five months later we walked down the aisle. I got the happy ending that the romantic comedy of my life thus far earned for me. All of the dating mishaps and missteps, and cheaters and liars , the one-night stands and the year-log dry spell culminated in an actual fairy tale. Holy shit! So now I'm a wife. Right this very second I have been a wife for 51 days 11 hours and 53 minutes. I have no idea what I am doing. The road so far hasn't been perfect but I can tell you it's been easier than any other relationship I've ever had. That's the way it is supposed to be, right? When you fall in love with the right person it is easy. All of the clichés and the sentimental song lyrics are true. I loved everything about our wedding. I walked myself down the aisle and we wrote our own vows. We rode bikes from the ceremony to the reception where we had a wedding cake constructed entirely out of cheese from Wisconsin where Nick is from. It was a beautiful, wonderful, champagne haze of friends and family, dancing and kissing and vowing to spend the rest of our lives together.
But what comes next?
The modern American marriage ceremony lacks something. Sure we know how to craft the perfect rustic barn decor that will make other Pinterest brides salivate. We spend thousands of dollars on flowers and paper invitations and funny mustaches for the photo booths. But nowhere in the marriage ceremony does anyone give us any actual advice about the marriage. We focus so much on the wedding, but no one talks about the marriage. I don't have the right role models for a happy marriage. My parents have been married for nearly 40 years and they can't stand one another. I grew up watching an unhappy couple make one another even more unhappy. Until this relationship I thought that arguing was the way "normal" couples communicated.
Experts claim the first year of marriage is the most important and one that can make or break a couple. Some refer to it as the "wet cement" year, as a time to create good habits that will "harden" into the rest of your lives.
A 2001 study at the University of Texas, Austin found that the newlywed years could be predictors of long-term marital bliss or stress, foreshadowing things like continued affection, ambivalence, responsiveness and overall stability of the marital bond.
I want us to make it. But I need help.We live in a world where the good bits, the pretty bits, the photoshopped bits are all on display and catalogued on social media. As a new bride this gives me intense anxiety about making things "perfect." But what if I could harness that social media for good, to crowdsource friends, acquaintances, readers and relatives about what has worked and what hasn't worked for their own marriages. What if we could get past all of the "perfect" bits to talk about the reality?
Everyone who has ever been married has something to say about marriage and I want to hear it. Through this column I want to crowd source the first year of my marriage. What should we be doing? How can we talk about the hard things? How should we handle our finances? What worked for other people? What didn't? We live in a time when we can Google just about anything and yet Google "happy marriage," and the result is a lot of click-bait lists.
I'm bringing in the experts. I want Dr. Ruth to tell me if I should be doing strange things new things in bed with whipped cream and batteries now that we're in this forever. I need Marie Kondo to help us de-clutter all of our accumulated single crap to make a "joyful" family home. What about that shrink who helped Gwyneth and Chris consciously uncouple? Should Nick and I be consciously coupling?
I want to talk about the Great Baby Wait Debate. I'm 35. Do my remaining eggs have any interest in doing their job or are they sitting around in caftans watching re-runs of the Golden Girls in my ovaries? Should we know we're ready?
I'm 35. Do my remaining eggs have any interest in doing their job or are they sitting around in caftans watching re-runs of the Golden Girls in my ovaries? Should we know we're ready?
How can I cure my gross case of husband mentionitis? I desperately want to stop saying "my husband" all the time but I find myself saying it to everyone from my friends to flight attendants to the guy at the dry cleaners to the check out clerk at Trader Joes. I know this is obnoxious and I can't stop! Am I the only one?
I need to talk about flirting. Can I still do it? I'm going to ask the French. They have some perspectives on the subject. What are the French "marriage rules" and should I be following them?
I need Suze Orman to tell me I'm wrong about everything we are doing with our money.
I want my husband and I to be equal partners, striving to make fairness a goal for our marriage. But I want to take on some "traditional" gender roles of a wife too.
We look back at the concept of the Home Economics class as an antiquated relic of a sexist past, but I would love a class that teaches me how to avoid burning a chicken, how to make my towels not smell weird and what the hell to do with a lemon zester.
In fact, it brings up the whole notion of being a stay-at-home mom. After 10 years of hard-core leaning in in the work world, is it ok that I fantasize about it? Does that mean I am leaning out? Am I an asshole for wanting to lean out?
We hear the same old tropes over and over again. Don't go to bed angry. Make a date night once a week. There is better advice out there.
For the next year Nick and I are willing to try it all. We'll try the easy things and the hard things and even the really weird things that involved whipped cream and batteries and purging our condo of anything orange. I need the world to tell me how to be a good wife.
Help me! Please leave your thoughts, questions, ideas in the comments below.
All married people love to tell newlyweds that marriage is hard work.
They never explain why exactly, preferring instead to force each newly married human to figure it out on their own as a hazing ritual necessary to enter the exclusive club of matrimony. After 20 years of dating all the wrong men, at age 34, I finally met my husband.
It was a perfect whirlwind romance. He proposed on top of a mountain (seriously) after just three months and five months later we walked down the aisle. I got the happy ending that the romantic comedy of my life thus far earned for me. All of the dating mishaps and missteps, and cheaters and liars , the one-night stands and the year-log dry spell culminated in an actual fairy tale. Holy shit! So now I'm a wife. Right this very second I have been a wife for 51 days 11 hours and 53 minutes. I have no idea what I am doing. The road so far hasn't been perfect but I can tell you it's been easier than any other relationship I've ever had. That's the way it is supposed to be, right? When you fall in love with the right person it is easy. All of the clichés and the sentimental song lyrics are true. I loved everything about our wedding. I walked myself down the aisle and we wrote our own vows. We rode bikes from the ceremony to the reception where we had a wedding cake constructed entirely out of cheese from Wisconsin where Nick is from. It was a beautiful, wonderful, champagne haze of friends and family, dancing and kissing and vowing to spend the rest of our lives together.
 |
| I'm Terrified of Screwing Up My First Year of Marriage, So I'm Asking the Experts—and the Internet—For Help. |
The modern American marriage ceremony lacks something. Sure we know how to craft the perfect rustic barn decor that will make other Pinterest brides salivate. We spend thousands of dollars on flowers and paper invitations and funny mustaches for the photo booths. But nowhere in the marriage ceremony does anyone give us any actual advice about the marriage. We focus so much on the wedding, but no one talks about the marriage. I don't have the right role models for a happy marriage. My parents have been married for nearly 40 years and they can't stand one another. I grew up watching an unhappy couple make one another even more unhappy. Until this relationship I thought that arguing was the way "normal" couples communicated.
Experts claim the first year of marriage is the most important and one that can make or break a couple. Some refer to it as the "wet cement" year, as a time to create good habits that will "harden" into the rest of your lives.
A 2001 study at the University of Texas, Austin found that the newlywed years could be predictors of long-term marital bliss or stress, foreshadowing things like continued affection, ambivalence, responsiveness and overall stability of the marital bond.
I want us to make it. But I need help.We live in a world where the good bits, the pretty bits, the photoshopped bits are all on display and catalogued on social media. As a new bride this gives me intense anxiety about making things "perfect." But what if I could harness that social media for good, to crowdsource friends, acquaintances, readers and relatives about what has worked and what hasn't worked for their own marriages. What if we could get past all of the "perfect" bits to talk about the reality?
 |
| I'm Terrified of Screwing Up My First Year of Marriage, So I'm Asking the Experts—and the Internet—For Help. |
I'm bringing in the experts. I want Dr. Ruth to tell me if I should be doing strange things new things in bed with whipped cream and batteries now that we're in this forever. I need Marie Kondo to help us de-clutter all of our accumulated single crap to make a "joyful" family home. What about that shrink who helped Gwyneth and Chris consciously uncouple? Should Nick and I be consciously coupling?
I want to talk about the Great Baby Wait Debate. I'm 35. Do my remaining eggs have any interest in doing their job or are they sitting around in caftans watching re-runs of the Golden Girls in my ovaries? Should we know we're ready?
I'm 35. Do my remaining eggs have any interest in doing their job or are they sitting around in caftans watching re-runs of the Golden Girls in my ovaries? Should we know we're ready?
How can I cure my gross case of husband mentionitis? I desperately want to stop saying "my husband" all the time but I find myself saying it to everyone from my friends to flight attendants to the guy at the dry cleaners to the check out clerk at Trader Joes. I know this is obnoxious and I can't stop! Am I the only one?
I need to talk about flirting. Can I still do it? I'm going to ask the French. They have some perspectives on the subject. What are the French "marriage rules" and should I be following them?
I need Suze Orman to tell me I'm wrong about everything we are doing with our money.
I want my husband and I to be equal partners, striving to make fairness a goal for our marriage. But I want to take on some "traditional" gender roles of a wife too.
We look back at the concept of the Home Economics class as an antiquated relic of a sexist past, but I would love a class that teaches me how to avoid burning a chicken, how to make my towels not smell weird and what the hell to do with a lemon zester.
In fact, it brings up the whole notion of being a stay-at-home mom. After 10 years of hard-core leaning in in the work world, is it ok that I fantasize about it? Does that mean I am leaning out? Am I an asshole for wanting to lean out?
We hear the same old tropes over and over again. Don't go to bed angry. Make a date night once a week. There is better advice out there.
For the next year Nick and I are willing to try it all. We'll try the easy things and the hard things and even the really weird things that involved whipped cream and batteries and purging our condo of anything orange. I need the world to tell me how to be a good wife.
Help me! Please leave your thoughts, questions, ideas in the comments below.
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