I DON’T feel married.
There.
I said it.
I know I AM married, that I know for sure. I have the photos and the sparkly wedding ring to prove it.
And the husband, I suppose.
“How’s married life treating ya,” people ask me regularly, grinning and nodding at me in a jocular fashion.
“Very oddly. Married life is very odd indeed,” is surprisingly not the answer most people are expecting.
It is most disconcerting to wake up one morning and suddenly have a husband. Despite the years we’ve been together and the many years we planned this wedding, it still felt very sudden.
I have a husband. That’s him there, on the right, in the photo above.
He will be the father of my children. He’s legally my next of kin. He has a say in whether or not my organs are donated. How’s that for romance?
But I still don’t feel married.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Of course, I’m happy. Blissfully so.
Then, I was happy before the wedding. Blissfully so.
I feel very secure in my relationship, but I’ve felt secure since our second date.
I get butterflies when I see him walking toward me, but I’ve always felt those flutters of excitement.
How are you supposed to feel? See – that’s the thing, nobody tells you how you’re supposed to feel.
Personally, I blame Hollywood.
There are plenty of movies out there about meeting The One, you know, boy meets girl, girl loves boy, boy’s not so sure, girl gets in a huff and says everything’s ‘fine’ when it’s clearly not, boy cops on, boy and girl live happily ever after.
But what happens after that? There’s plenty of walking off into the sunset, even movies about the actual wedding itself, but the aftermath is rarely shown.
If Twentieth Century Fox doesn’t tell me how to feel, am I really married at all? That is the question.
Is this it?
Is it normal to feel like the wedding day was a dream, like it happened years ago, or perhaps didn’t even happen at all?
Is it normal for life to continue on as usual, exactly the same as before the wedding – just as happy, just as in love, just the same?
Or am I a monster with no soul?
Photo courtesy of the lovely and talented Red Mum http://www.redmum.ie
Beating Myself Into a Dress 
Sarah - OGW
I think it’s normal. Well, that’s what I’ve heard. But sure, you’re blissfully happy, what would you want to change?
beatingmyselfintoadress
Yeah – there’s nothing I’d change. I just expected to feel…different? I dunno!
Naomi
I’ll be married 4 years this September and still feel like that..a few friends have asked me over the married years what its like to have a husband, my answer is usually “I dunno really…the same as it felt to have a fantastic boyfriend that I wanted to Marry except now instead of planning a wedding we talk of renewing our vows!” Its odd…it’ll always be odd…you have this fantastic day that’s over in the blink of an eye, two lovely wedding rings, a mass of photo’s and one certificate to say you’ve done the deed and then its right back to normal as if the big day was almost a figment of your imagination….still, I wouldn’t have it any other way :0)
beatingmyselfintoadress
That’s exactly it! There’s a photo of me in a wedding dress and it’s UTTERLY bizarre and like it never happened. Glad to hear others feel the same!
Donna
Your blog post rang so true with me! Married 5 months now and as you say its all like a dream, I expected it to be different but its not! My hubby and I have discussed this and wondered if it would be different if you hadn’t lived together, even though not many people do this anymore? We also wondered if its the reason why people who have lived together are more likely to divorce – or so they kept saying at our marriage prep course – is it because you think things will change and it’ll be like the movies, fix any little probs – then its an anti-climax? Not that our relationship had any probs nor does it sound like you did – but ya know just something to think about!
beatingmyselfintoadress
I have wondered this myself Donna. When we moved in together first THAT felt VERY different. That took a lot of adjustment and compromise, you know? So I wonder if we had waited until we married to live together would I feel that times a million, as we moved into our new life together? I guess I’ll never know. I don’t know why people divorce, I think there has to be lots of different reasons though, I doubt it would come back to one thing, such as living together before marriage. Plenty of people who didn’t live together before marriage divorce as well. I think a myriad of things lead to divorce. It doesn’t feel like an anticlimax really…just…the same as always!! Although it’s very samey, it’s WONDERFUL, so I guess I shouldn’t moan too much!
Eimear
Again your blog managed to capture how I feel. I’ll be married five months next week and still don’t feel different. I still sometimes forget to call him my husband. I get asked how is married life and I say it doesn’t feel any different. I still feel the same way about him as I did before, we still live together, nothing has changed. The wedding day felt like a dream until we got the marriage cert, that felt a bit more real. But I like looking at my ring. And now we have the wedding album and DVD too to look back on – yes it definitely happended, I wasn’t dreaming 🙂
beatingmyselfintoadress
That’s what I’m like too. Looking at my wedding ring going ‘it DEFFO happened, I’m DEFFO married!’ I am delighted to find out I’m not the only one! I was feeling like an unromantic hoor so I was!
Sandra
I’ll let you know in four days Karen 😀
Joanne
I saw your thread earlier on Wol and never copped that you had this blog, so I had to check it out!
It’s fab!
I’ve been laughing out loud reading your entries! You should get this published, it’d be a best seller! You’ve a great way with words and I look forward to regularly checking out your blog. BTW I’m married 3 years and like your latest blog, sometimes I don’t feel ‘married’ either! I guess that’s a good thing though. Things were perfect when we were boyfriend and girlfriend so why should anything change just because we walked down the aisle and changed rings and signed some paper! Well done and keep up the good work, I look forward to your next update! 🙂
P.S. You looked fab on your wedding day. Congrats! x
Eimear
I agree – have been saying since i started reading this that it should be published 🙂
speccy
It dawned on me the other day that I made reference to ‘my husband’ without blinking. We married in 2000. I don’t think I felt different suddenly, or noticably, but now I’ve realised that I do feel ‘married’.
CC
I’ve read your whole blog and it’s very funny and lovely. I’m curious what dating site you met your husband on and which ones you think are good
beatingmyselfintoadress
Thanks for dropping by CC, and thank you for reading! I used MaybeFriends and would recommend it. I also hear good things about AnotherFriend. Or you could try this blog, Beaut.ie http://www.beaut.ie which has a dating section. It’s also a great blog!!