Marriage week: an introduction

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the world's perception of marriage and how I have seen it rub off on people that I know and love. I hear the word "fairytale" thrown around a lot in regards to marriage. People actually expect it to be a fairytale, and when it's not, they give up and get divorced.

A few weeks ago I saw a commercial for an episode of the Kardashians. It was the episode where Kim decides to get a divorce and (as embarrassing as this is to admit) I decided to tune in to the full episode. As she is contemplating divorce, she repeatedly says things like "it just wasn't the fairytale I expected," or "I want another chance at my fairytale." Then, last week, I saw a People magazine sitting on my mom's coffee table that had Heidi Klum on the cover. I opened it up and read what she had to say about her split from her husband, Seal. I wasn't surprised to find phrases like, "it wasn't a fairytale anymore," and "we fell out of love."

While hearing/reading these things, I wanted to scream,"You have no idea how to make a marriage work!" For anyone who adheres the school of thought that marriage should be a fairytale, let me ask you this, have you ever found it to be true that life, in general, is a fairytale? Have your relationships with your parents, siblings, best friends, or boyfriends ever been free of disagreements, struggles, or trials? Have they been what one might call a fairytale? My guess is no. So why on earth would you think that marriage would be a fairytale?

So in honor of Valentine's day, I have decided to spend the week writing about marriage. Why do I feel the need to do this? Maybe it's because of the discussion I had with a close friend the other day and the fact that she was obviously rattled by the number of friends she has seen get divorced during the first few years of marriage. Or maybe it's because the talks in sacrament yesterday went hand-in-hand with everything I have been thinking about the past few weeks and I took it as a sign. All I know is that I feel the need to write these thoughts down, and maybe it will only end up being for my benefit (since my blog isn't exactly far reaching), but I think it should make for an interesting week. So stay tuned!

Disclaimer: our computer crashed and I'll be typing from my tablet. This is pretty infuriating for me and I probably won't care as much about grammar and spelling because it's just harder on this thing. Don't judge.