This week’s Monday Musings is about Marriage, particularly what it is like to get married for the first time later in life and how that affects who you are as well as, what it’s like to have someone in your space, when you are so used to being by yourself.

So, this is the timeline of my last 4 years.
10th July 2015 Meet Mr N for Coffee
3rd November 2016 Mum was diagnosed with Cancer
27th March 2017 Mum passed away
27th May 2017 Mr N asked me to marry him
9th October 2017 We got married on Dad’s 80th Birthday
11th February 2019 Dad passed away

So it’s been an interesting journey to say the least and Mr N has been though all the ups and downs of the last 4 years.

Meeting Mr N was in fact the last date I was going on after a long hard slog of many good and bad dates over a time span of 3.5 years. I was done… no more. So fortunately (or not depending on how you look at it) Mr N turned out to be the one. I knew at about 6 months that I was going to marry this one after being single for (technically) 44 years. It was exciting and scary all at the same time.

My Hubby!

So marriage… it’s fantastic, I would highly recommend it, when you are with the person that fits you and you fit them. However, that FITTING part, it’s kind of HARD WORK. Really what was God thinking??? Men and women are SO different, it’s unbelievable. No one ever told me how (I will try and be nice…who am I kidding) SELFISH they are and SELF CENTRED. It is unbelievable how they think the whole world revolves around them, LOL! Getting used to that and integrating into their life to make some subtle (who am I kidding I’m never subtle) changes to make life run more smoothly is a work in progress. Although I have had some wins, as the following few things happen without me saying anything or asking anymore and a win is a win right! The bin gets put out every Sunday night, the clothes now go in the basket not next to it, the kitchen gets cleaned straight after dinner (there isn’t a lot as we have a dishwater and a couple of Thermomixes), the work boots come off before traipsing dirt through the house, and he now wipes his hands (sometimes even on the tea towel) after washing so that drips of water don’t follow him around the house. So things are looking up! 🙂 

Yes my dad was just well enough to walk me down the isle.

In the beginning, after mum died, I was full time caring for Dad. Even after Mr N and I got married, I was still caring for Dad. Mr N has a house in Ipswich (where his business operates from) and I have a house on the Gold Coast. So even though we are married, we aren’t living together full-time. In the beginning this was really difficult, but now almost 2 years down the track I am enjoying the fact that on Monday night after dinner, Mr N goes back to his house for the week’s work and returns on Friday night for dinner. It means that I can keep the house clean for a few days. I get to concentrate on my blog and recipe development and I get time to do my Thermomix business as well as hang out with family and friends for coffee etc.

We had to get a thermomix reference into the wedding!

We didn’t get to go to pre marriage counselling, so we decided that it was important to go and get some outside perspective. The whole process has been fabulous and I thoroughly recommend getting couples counselling, especially if there is nothing really wrong, because you are starting from a place of strength and building stronger rather than turning up in a crisis and trying to figure out what happened. We have both learnt a lot about each other through this process, but especially like the “appreciation conversation” which is where the other person tells them a something they appreciate about them. It is a really good tool to understand why someone appreciates you not just that they do! The other valuable lesson is using the phrase “The story I’m telling myself is…” because many times (most of the time), women and men think differently about the same thing, verbalise it differently or say one thing and the other person can take it totally different. So that phrase has defused a lot of “could have been…” arguments. The next best thing we have learnt is “mirroring.” So when MR N says something and I’m not really quite sure if I understand, I say back to him… Blah… Blah… Blah… is that right, did I hear you correctly? If not, can you explain it to me in a way that I can understand. It makes such a huge difference, so I thoroughly recommend this type of communication counselling 🙂

Spa day on our honeymoon

Mr N has been there to support me though (let’s face it) probably the most difficult time of my life, he has put up with my amazingly prolific mood swings from sobbing in tears to screaming and yelling and everything in-between. The fact that he still loves me is the most wonderful thing. Mr N has also been through a lot these last couple of years as well and calls himself the high maintenance husband. So our words to each other have always been “we are better together” and “be kind to yourself”. This is something that we will continue to do as we support each other along this journey that is life. Sometime when I’m grumpy and think what did I do… why did I marry this weird human and why are we so different, I’m not sure I can put up with this for the rest of my life. I stop… breathe… and remember that through everything I would rather have him in my life (even if it’s complicated) than not have him there.

I hope that whatever stage of life you are at that you have love, joy and peace knowing that you are exactly where you need to be on the way to where you are going.

Thanks for reading,

Liz xx

Elizabeth Connolly

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I have been cooking since I can remember. I am a Thermomix consultant, so now (whenever possible) try to give you Conventional AND Thermomix methods for the recipes. I like to share tips on how to save money and how making food from scratch isn't really that hard (especially with a Thermomix). If you have any questions about the Thermomix or cooking/food in general please email me as I'm happy to chat.
Liz xx
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