We live in a more or less conventional society, and chances are if you are single right now, you’ll eventually find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. However, before you decide to tie the knot, I am one of the lucky few people who got married young and can share some interesting insights.
1. The Wedding Night Hype
Back in the “Golden Age”, people did not do what we do at weddings nowadays. Moreover, considering how stressful it is to actually meet your guests’ standards of weddings, you are going to be throwing one hell of a party. And when I say party, I do not mean 15 minutes of dancing until the buffet opens. I mean five hours of jumping up and down like a crazed cocaine-sniffing party animal.
So, it is perfectly okay if you end up watching Friends, eating leftover food from your buffet and getring some sleep. You have a lifetime ahead of you.
2. Food is your responsibility
I am not being sexist here or anything, I mean either you, the husband, or you, the wife, are now fully accountable to buy food, wash food, prepare it and eventually cook it. The fridge is not going to be magically stocked with ready-to-eat-food like you were once used to. So be ready to spend less on outings and more on food.
3. Laundry service is no longer free of charge
Yes, I said it. You will no longer open your wardrobe and find a clean outfit pressed on its own. Now you have to make sure that you wash your clothes, send them to a laundry service and pay the bills. I find splitting chores here very interesting.
4. Fight Club
This deserves an article on its own, however, I will give you a couple of hints or heads-up regarding this issue. It is only human nature that you as a married couple will fight about basically anything you disagree upon.
Nonetheless, you need to make sure that you always respect the person in front of you and never use anything personal against him/her – otherwise, the damage will be irreparable. Keep it clean and always try to strike a balance between anger and management.
5. The In-Laws…
In foreign societies, building close relationships with in-laws is not a necessity, but in Egypt it most certainly is. In Egypt, you do not only marry a person, but you also marry his or her family. So in order to live in peace and have things work out for you as a couple, try to stay on good terms with the in-laws, yet not have them control your lives.
Yes, I am talking to you: Don’t let your mother ruin your marriage for you. Do what makes sense and suits the both of you.
6. The Shared Bed Conundrum
You’ve most probably spent your adult life in one big cozy bed, with your own quilt in your very own room, and the best part was that what happened in there, stayed in there.
When you are married, anything you do while sleeping now has a witness – and to tell the truth, it may freak you out a bit. So for instance, you might discover that you talk while sleeping, and that you are, in fact, without a doubt, 100% guilty of hogging the bedcover. It takes time, but you’ll get used to it and you’ll even develop inside jokes about it.
More often than not, people are shocked to their very core when they hear that I am married and they always ask me, “Wow, what’s that like? Being 24 and married?” I usually respond with, “It is not that difficult.”
People trash talk marriage more often than they should. Marriage is ridiculed on a mass media scale, be it in sitcoms, talk-shows, movies and of course by married people. However, the truth is, I believe that what makes a marriage fail is not the constitution itself, but, unfortunately, it is whom you choose to marry.
Also, like any other commitment, marriage is not an easy thing to do, but it always boils down to what you make of it.
WE SAID THIS: Don’t miss “#هتجوز_عشان: Six Actual Reasons Why You Should Get Married“
