Life as a Wife

It was a Friday night and Blake was out with his friends while I was home relaxing with a bottle of Chardonnay.  I found myself with nothing to do (which means I was playing Farmville on Facebook and had 30 minutes left till I could harvest anything...) so I decided to play one of my favorite random games: Google That!  I made it up all by myself.  Just go to Google, start typing in any random question, and hit enter.  Ok, so maybe that's why Google was invented, but still, you get some pretty interesting answers (and questions, now that they have Google Instant).

And somehow during this random question game I thought to ask the almighty Google, "What does it mean to be a wife?"

This was my personal favorite answer:

"It means you have promised to have and to hold, from that day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do you part.

It also means you may now fart in front of him."

I laughed.  And then I got kinda sad.  Because that was the only semi-decent answer to the question.  What DOES it mean to become a wife?  I haven't found many positive or affirming answers out there.  On top of that, I'm Blake's second wife (which I rarely think about, I have never once felt "second" in his life)-and the Google results for "What does it mean to be his second wife" were even more disheartening.

I have been very fortunate in that Blake and I have encountered very few obstacles as a couple.  I think it's a combination of the fact that both of us were in very poisonous relationships prior to meeting each other (and therefore infinitely more grateful to find a partner who was also grateful), and that we are just suited for each other in just about every way.  We complement each other very well.  However, that does not mean that it hasn't taken us time to adjust to being a we after being just a me for so long.  Dating is/was fun (I say that because I believe that in order for us to remain a successful couple we will need to continue "dating" each other in some form or fashion for the rest of our lives)-but the moving in together presented a major stepping stone and change in how we spent our time together.

For instance, the first month we lived together Blake asked me every single night, "What do you want to do tonight?"  And finally, after a month, I explained that some nights I wanted to come home and do nothing.  And nothing means nothing.  Not sit and watch tv with you.  Not play a game together.  Not talk about our days.  I mean I want to come home and no offense but I don't want to talk to you or anyone else I just want a glass of wine and my computer or tv or book and do what I do without being watched, talked at, monitored, followed, or otherwise reminded that I currently share this space with another human being.

Of course that doesn't mean I love that human being any less.

I just need some me time, and I know myself well enough to know I'm always going to need that.  I'm going to have to figure out how to explain this to my kids someday.  But that's a WHOLE other blog.

See what I mean?  Right now I'm just the live-in girlfriend/fiancee who is trying to find a balance between the "me" I know and the "we" I want.  And I've been a "we" before, so this isn't exactly new territory.

"Wife" is an exciting, alluring, strange, frightening, important and yet at the same time almost mundane thing to become.  I mean, come on.  We all know "wives".  Nearly all the women in my life are or have been at one time a wife.  Does being a wife take on new meaning as you celebrate your 35th year with the title?  Or does it just become another way you define yourself?  "Oh, I'm so-and-so's wife..."  Most women I've talked to have said that being a wife is definitely different from being a girlfriend, but none of them can really define what changes.

My girlfriend Lindsay is a very different wife from my girlfriend Lauren, who is a very different wife from my girlfriend Emily, who is a different wife than my mother, who is a different kind of wife than my grandmother was or what my sister-in-law is.  I will be a different wife than they are.  I wonder how I will define "wife" when the time comes.

And I wonder how life as a "wife" will define me.