[Wedding rants] Part 5: Achievements

by theadventuresofbeka

Those of you who know me personally know that I rant. A lot. These rants are usually long-winded and excessive, and I expect that you listen quietly while I yell them at you. I’ve decided to share these with you (this “you” being my blog audience), so that you can “enjoy” them too since wedding planning has brought a whole new batch of frustrations to my life.

Enjoy 😉.

Part 5: Getting married is not an achievement.

As a female in her early twenties, I have received a lot of positive feedback about the fact that I am getting married in May. In typical “Beka” fashion, I have responded by getting grumpy. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that people are happy about my circumstances. I am just disappointed in how I feel society views my upcoming marriage.

People act so impressed about the fact that I am getting married. Many people seem to treat it as some sort of accomplishment on the part of B and I. I also feel that there is this societal idea in the U.S. that it’s a big deal. Now, I do think that getting married is a big deal. I just don’t think that it should go on the list of things I’ve achieved. Getting married actually isn’t that difficult. In order to get married, an individual just has to find another individual and they have to mutually agree to sign a piece of paper. There isn’t a whole lot of “doing”. There’s a lot of chemistry, circumstances, patience, waiting (at times), self-love, and dates, but it’s not actually that difficult of a process.

Staying married on the other hand is a huge accomplishment. I think it’s our parents who deserve all the “congrats” that B and I have received. They’ve remained married through life changes, illness, children and more. We, on the other hand, have dated for a year and a half. I think the only remotely impressive part of that is that we’ve been long distance the whole time. We are still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship where misunderstandings are funny.

In some ways, I feel like I have been cheated out of the recognition due to me for things I have actually accomplished this year. Most people are so focused on the fact that I’m getting married in May that they don’t even acknowledge the fact that I’m also graduating Master’s degree. This frustrates me because I’ve worked three years for this degree and selfishly, I want to be told I did a good job in my studies instead of listening to people coo over my wedding colors.

I know that many people are congratulating me on my upcoming marriage because they are excited that I am happy, and that’s great. I just don’t like that in the process I am beginning to feel like society views my marriage as a bigger accomplishment than my Master’s degree or any of the other things I have worked towards in the past few years. Plus, I know that only a few people are going to take their time in a few years to acknowledge the fact that B and I will still be married despite the difficulties of marriage. Obviously, I don’t do these things, whether it’s my upcoming marriage, my education or the maintenance of my marriage in the future, to receive recognition, but that doesn’t mean I’m not feeling frustrated about society’s view of my accomplishments.

So, if you’re going to congratulate me on my upcoming marriage, congratulate me on my upcoming graduation too ;).

P.S. Getting pregnant isn’t an accomplishment either. That’s just biology which we have very little control over. The hard part is raising a child.