I love my Husband

Omg I love my husband. I just came home for my lunch break from work. I work in a really really stressful enviorment and it usually takes me a few minutes when I come home to de-stress. I usually just eat really quick and run back.

Today I came home for lunch, totally stressed out with my head still in the office, as usual. But when I walked in, my husband took my bag, took my coat, and gave me a huge hug. Then he said, “Let’s go look at some things,” and he leads me by the hand past some empty boxes he just unpacked and put away, then to the bedroom where he put together a dresser and put my clothes away in it (!), to the pile of clean laundry he had sorted and put away, and then finally to the closet where he sorted out all his clothes.

I was on the floor. He usually never does stuff like this unless I’ve asked him to, usually more than once. He knows I hate mess and it’s been bugging me that everything’s all over the place, because we have nowhere to put anything (hence the assembled dresser). So today while I was at work, after he came home from yeshiva and before he did his physics paper, he did all this for me.

I started crying I was so happy and overwhelmed. (Also, I’m very overtired and stressed. But still.) It was so sweet! And the absolute sweetest thing is not what he did, but that he was so happy that I was happy.  It’s so amazing to have someone like that, that all he wants is for me to be happy. It’s amazing. He’s so amazing. When he’s happy it doesn’t make me as happy as it makes him. Girls are more emotional. But the look on his face, and his smile when he saw me smiling, was priceless.

God, I’m tearing up again.

I love him.

Me Me Me…and Unmarried Friends

I wonder if other newly marrieds ever want just time to themselves. I love my husband dearly, and I love spending time with him. But sometimes, I just want to kick back, eat some ice cream, and watch old Sex and the City reruns without worrying about my husband overhearing the, er, bad parts. Right now my husband is at school, and I am thoroughly enjoying my alone time. Does that make me a bad person? I do miss him, though.

Also, it gives me a chance to blog, cause he don’t know about this baby. Does that make me a bad person too? I like having something that’s just for me. Plus, it gives me complete leave to write what I want without worrying about him reading it. Once I get more comfortable with this whole blog thingy, I was planning on writing about more personal things too.

Anyway. I just wanted to vent a little on unmarried friends who get resentful when their married friends can’t keep in touch as well as they did when they were single. Granted, I was like that when my first friend got married. But I was also 18 years old and still in Shana Alef. And as more and more of my friends got married, I got used to the fact that they dropped off the face of the Earth.

Now I just got married. I was 20 when I got married. I’m the first of my seminary friends to get married, the first of my close-knit group. And I understand that it’s hard that they never hear from me anymore (they never see my anyway cause they’re in college in the city). I do, I really really do. But I’m so freakin’ busy! I’m holding down two jobs. I go to school and work, and I’m busy until at least 8:30pm every single night. Then I come home and, even if I don’t have to make dinner and wash dishes, etc (which I usually do anyway) I still have another person, who, although 22 years old and almost six feet tall, likes to be taken care of. My relationship with my husband takes first priority, and every drop of energy left in my tired body goes to him first.  At the end of the weekday, I have nothing left. Really.

And it doesn’t make me feel better when you are a snot to me about it. It doesn’t make me want to call you any more. And no matter what problem you have with me or my situation – weather you are jealous, upset that I don’t call you, think I’m an annoying newly married, whatever – it does not give you a right to come to my house for shabbos and start elaborating to my husband about some of my bad qualities. You’re 22 years old. Grow up. He’ll discover them soon enough on his own. I don’t need you painting a bad picture of me to my husband, thank you very much. I’m sorry that you are feeling neglected but you do have other friends, and it’s not that I don’t like you anymore. I’m just busy!

Sorry. I really do undertand how frusterated single people can be when thier friend first get married. I was in your boat not too long ago. But I just wanted to give my side a little chance. Being married is hard. Shana Rishona is hard. It’s a huge responsibilty and process to build a relashonship with the person you are going to be spending the rest of your life with. The fact that it’s very enjoyable doesn’t make it any easier, to tell you the truth. And the cold hard truth is……….and I hate to say this, cause every single unmarried person is going to stone me…..your husband is the most important person in your life. Period. More important than your parents, your siblings, and, sorry to say, your friends.

I love you. But I’m busy.

There’s Someone for Everyone

I have a friend. Well, she’s a friend who I used to be close with, then we went to different seminaries, and she started hanging out with her Brooklyn friends again and we kinda just drifted apart. Anyway, she lives down the block from me, so we have a weird pseudo-friendly relationship. Describing this could take days, so I’ll just move onto my point.

Anyway, she got engaged a few weeks before my wedding. She was – is – one of those girls who wanted to get married since she was like, two years old, and has been dating since the day she got home from seminary. She was always into this guy or that guy, obsessing about every new date endlessly until the next guy came along. It was incredibly annoying. She’s always been attracted to guys that I can’t stand – hockers, smartasses, guys who think they’re God’s gift to the world. She even told me why – “‘Cause if I marry a guy like that, whose sooooo cool, it means he chose me! I’m special!” Ugh. Give me a break. Guys like that aren’t ever worth your time.

So she got engaged. And her husband Is. A. Total. Jackass. I’m not kidding. Everyone who meets him – everyone whose normal, that is – agrees with me. When I first met him, I wanted to slap him he was such a jerk. He kept saying how hot my friend was, in front of her face, and made hand motions in front of his chest – I think unconsciously, though – to show how, er, well endowed she was. And at their vort he was hockin’ it up, and every time a friend of his came over to wish him mazal tov he was like, “Isn’t my kallah the hottest thing?”

It literally made me ill. I can’t understand how anyone could like those kind of guys. I guess there’s someone for everyone, but OMG. It’s nauseating. And when I think about it, I get so angry. I don’t know why. I have a wonderful husband who is everything I ever wanted. Sorry to sound so newly-weddy. So why do I get angry?

Is it because guys like that can still get sweet girls who, if they were with a better guy, would act sweeter instead of more obnoxious, superfical, and Brookly-ny? Is it because I think that he won’t love her the way he should? Is it because I wish that guys like that would never get the girl, so they can learn their lessons? Arrg. It just makes me so angry. I don’t really know why. But it does. Errr.

I hope she never wants to double-date.

Bad Bad Girls

It always, always bothered me that so-called “bad girls” – girls who fooled around in seminary and high school, you know the type; drinking, smoking, cutting curfew, fooling around with guys – never seemed to suffer any consequences for their behavior. And the most obvious consequence to me was shidduchim and getting married. Their actions never seemed to hinder their shidduch prospects. In fact, they were usually the ones who got married right out of seminary. And this annoyed me to no end. Why, I asked myself, did I bother being a good girl, even when it was hard, if I could just do whatever the heck I wanted? Apparently having a good reputation was not required to getting a good shidduch.

And before you’re all over me for being so single-minded about shidduchim, I have to tell you that I never felt comfortable joining my friends on trips to pool halls motzai shabbos or hanging out at pizza stores, even when I was 15 and a long way from shidduchim. That’s not the kind of person I was. And it carried over into my seminary life. I did not go to a BY seminary, didn’t want to, and there were some very slutty girls in my seminary. But I shied away from them, instinctively. It wasn’t what I wanted for myself. And more it was more than fear for my reputation. I didn’t really know what it was until last night when I was talking about this with my husband, and he was like, “It was your own self-respect, you idiot.” Oh. That makes sense.

But what bothered me – and I don’t think I’m being very clear here – is that there seemed to be no sense of justice.  If  I was a slutty girl, I would not have gotten the same shidduch offers as I did. It seems to follow that therefore, I would not have met my husband. Fine. But I would have been a different person, and met a different man, and wouldn’t I have been just as happy then?

I guess a part of me was always jealous. I couldn’t let myself do it. But G-d, how a part of me wanted to. And it always frustrated me that I couldn’t let myself. Why couldn’t I just sneak out at midnight and go hang out with some bummy guys that my friend’s knew though a friend? Why couldn’t I go to Ben Yehuda after curfew and have a drink or two? Why couldn’t I fool around with some guy in a dark alley? Why cares if no one knew? Slutty girls get married and there are a heck of a lot of good girls who don’t. (Granted, this did upset me more when I was single.)

But as my husband and I discussed this further, and he made sense of my bitter ramblings, something became clearer. I shouldn’t have been worried that the things I did would affect my shidduchim, or that other girls would get married before me even though they did stuff. That would affect their marriage, that’s true, but this isn’t about other people, my husband said. It’s about you. Your self respect (as I mentioned before), and  you becoming a better person for your own growth. You not hanging out and drinking has only positive affects on your life. I could have done what I wanted, and married some other guy, and I’m sure I would have been happy with him. But did I want be a girl who knew that her husband wasn’t the first one she ever touched? Did I want to be the girl who laughed loudly with her envious, more religious friends about the wild stuff she did when she was younger, but whose wishing inside that she had enough self-respect not to go that far?

So maybe I was a nerd in seminary. Maybe I was the girl who looked on with a mixture of jealousy and disgust when my roomate related her exploits about the guy she was currently dating. And weather or not she or I got married first was not the important thing. I know I did the right thing. Getting married is not the only reward for that, though it may have seemed that way to me as a seminary girl. Bad girls get married too. (And I’m sorry to say, but you can tell just by looking at a couple how they were when they were single. Like married like. Guys who hung out at pool halls motzai shabbos smoking don’t stop just because they got married.)

But I see that good girls marry good boys. And I wouldn’t trade my good boy for a wild seminary experience, however much some juvenile part of me wishes for it, for anything in the world.

I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman

Oh, how happy would Britney be to know her song is the title of a Jewish chick’s blog post. Well, at least someone remembered it, right?

Why are unmarried women referred to as “girls”, no matter what their age? (Though I guess gray hair would curtail that a bit). I know this has been discussed in many a blog, but I thought I would throw my own two cents in. I was thinking about it the other night. It’s really depressing and so unfair. Once, my high school was going to get this amazing speaker for us, a single girl (I forget her name, she’s really famous for speaking, Chani something…? I don’t remember) and they wouldn’t book her in the end because she wasn’t married. It really irks me! Granted, I’m a 21 year old nothing, but if I was single at 26 would I want to be treated like an 18-year-old seminary girl because there is no shaitel atop my head?

And it really makes a difference, let me tell you. When I went to my first wedding after I was married, it was weird. I felt different. People looked at me with more respect. I know that sounds presumptuous, but that’s how I felt. I wonder if any other newly married people get this feeling? And it’s such a shock, too, this transformation from a single girl that older women stare at with a combination of expectation and judgment in their eyes. Suddenly, with a flashing diamond on my finger and a nice blondish-brownish layered cut on my head, I became a person. And that is pathetic.

Your worth should not be measured on weather or not some man has decided to spend his life with you. Granted, that’s a wonderful thing. But it should be the most wonderful thing. And even though I am married (which I can hardly say without a token “baruch Hashem”) part of me is just as happy about not dating and being scrutinized anymore as about finding the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.

In my opinion, finding your zivug should not be tainted with a massive feeling of relief. But it is, and I’m sure it’s like that for other newly marrieds as well. Especially in this day and age, with all the crazy shidduch stuff you hear about out there.

I’m not a person any more than I was a few months ago. Granted, marriage is hard work. Very hard. But it takes just as much strength and determination to put on a brave face after every unsuccessful date. And as much as I love the attention and newfound respect (however much unwarranted) it just makes me feel worse and worse for the girls still involved. I have a sister whose going to be in shidduchim soon….

What’s in a Name?

I was thinking last night, as I lay in bed (it was one of those falling-asleep-at-nine-nights), about using your husbands name to other people. It always used to piss me off when girls were like that, “Oh, my husband says we have to go to this wedding, ” or “My husband and I love cole slaw,” etc. Just use his freakin’ name! Whatever. Say his name, I’m not an idiot, I know you are married. Get over it.

But yesterday, I was at work and one of my co-workers answered the phone. She turns to me and says, “It’s —-” (my husband). And part of me was a little bothered about something, I didn’t know what, and I didn’t hit my until last night.

Names are special things. I don’t know about you, but I always feel a little awkward addressing random guys I didn’t know by name. It makes for awkward shabbos meals. “Uh, er…..hey! You in the white shirt! No, not you, the other one. Yeah, you. Can I have the salt?” It just felt too personal, you know what I mean? Too intimate. I don’t think I did start calling my husband by his first name until at least the second date. And this girl, this little chicklet, is using my husband’s name in vain? He’s mine! How dare the little hussy! Nah, I’m just kidding. But it did feel a tad bit strange. And while I still throw my husbands name around all over the place – “—- and I are going to a bar to drink mojitos tonight, want to come?” – I can understand why someone a bit more sensitive would not.

Understanding’s a good thing, right?

A Dating Retrospetive

I had this really long conversation with my cousin last night about dating. She grew up really, really modern, and she went to Israel last year and semi-flipped out, and decided to only wear skirts and cover her hair when she gets married. We’re all really proud of her (though her mother is having a flip attack). Anyway, when I got married, she was all like, “I can’t imagine how you do it, I could never sleep with a guy I’ve never kissed. How can you know you want to marry someone that you’ve only known for a few weeks?” But last weekend she was set up on a blind date with this guy that’s best friends with one of her guy friends, and it went great. And because she liked him so much, all of a sudden she’s all, “I can be shomer for him” and “I finally understand that it doesn’t matter!” Besides for the fact that it’s cute how she did such an about face when it comes to a guy she likes, what made me think long and hard about this conversation was how different dating is when you actually like someone, and how different dating is from a perspective of someone who hasn’t grown up in the shidduch world.

I guess for people who are yeshivish enough to shidduch date (and this could be a very wide spectrum), and who grow up in a community that does, blind dating is normal and expected. It’s weird when someone meets her husband in a different way. Per usual Jewish-community gossip regulations, ever aspect of this unusual situation is discussed. “I heard they met in Brooklyn College and dated for a year!” It’s cute, of course, and everyone is secretly jealous that it was so gosh-darned easy for them. But once again, it’s unusual. As silly as it sounds, it’s just the way things are. Truthfully, though I think the shidduch system sucks eggs (though not with End The Madness zealousness) I can’t think of a better way. If you meet somebody in college, or in Starbucks, or whatever, and you like each other (aka: attracted to each other) and you go out for awhile, whose to say you’re both marriage minded? Granted, this is a much more common occurance in secular society. It seems to me that in every chick-lit book I’ve read or chick-flick I’ve watched, it’s always the same story: the guy and girl meet, they date, it starts casual, it gets more serious, but the guy has commitment issues or something and the girl is terrified of even mentioning the word “marriage”. That’s not how a relationship should be! That’s such a waste of time! Why would anyone want that? It’s already all up in the Upper West Side. Ever heard of a teffilin date?

I was never the type of girl who thought she would get engaged after dating someone for two weeks. But I did. And yes, after we were engaged I freaked out and had doubts, because everything moved insanely fast, but truthfully? I knew that I wanted to marry him. It was just that it seemed like my life was moving without me that scared the bejeesus out of me.

But, you may ask, how do you know? How can you know after knowing someone for less than a month that you want to spend your life with them? It’s not an exact science. It’s not the same for everyone. I didn’t know after the first, second, or even third date (though he did). But as unromantic as it sounds, Jewish marriages are not about the “spark” and the “chemistry” and the “head over heals in love” feelings. It’s about similar goals, and building a life together, and wanting to bring out the best in each other. When I sat across that little teeny table in Starbucks with my tall Chai Tea Latte balanced precariously on my knees, I saw someone who made me laugh, who wanted what I wanted out of life, who was a good, kind person. And I could imagine building a life with him. The sparks, chemistry, and head-over-heels feelings came later. Much later. Most of them after we were married. But if the foundation is there, the rest will follow. The “love” that secular society tells us fades after x amount of years together is not the love that we Jews aspire to. We want a love that will only get stronger with each passing day, not weaker with every new wrinkle.

So I’m glad my cousin is seeing what I’m seeing. She may or may not date this guy. She may date him for a year and then break up with him. I have no idea. But at least one formerly bitter-against-yeshivish Modern Orthodox girl has an inkling of why we do the things we do. At least a little bit.

Nervous

Well.

I’ve been trolling for Orthodox Jewish blogs for the last few months, with an eye out for any related to dating, marriage, and the like. I started when I got a new job that gives me constant internet access and occasional free time. And I found a lot – espcially of dating blogs. But I didn’t find any on marriage (or at least ones that I would want to read).

As a newly married 21-year-old, I have lots of questions. I’m the oldest in my family, so I don’t have the older-sister thing going for me, and I’m the first one of my close friends to get married. I just figured that a blog – anonymous, where I would get a chance to write, something that I love to do – would give me a place to ask some questions, vent a little, and see what came slinging back.

I’m a little nervous about this whole thing, so I’m going to take it slow. For now. I feel so exposed, even though no one can tell who I am.

But it feels good.