Being a wife is hard
Charlie
Charlie
For many of us, planning our weddings isn’t easy. Being a wife is harder. After all the excitement of getting married there is a the serious task of becoming a ‘good wife’. Six months on, I’m finding being a good wife challenging.
I have a very clear idea of what I want to do for my husband and home, and for myself, but I don’t seem to be achieving many of those things at the moment. Back in the days when I was a girlfriend, even a girlfriend of seven years, it felt a whole lot different. I felt like the bottom line was it could just be about me, I was still Charlie Burton, girlfriend. Now I’m a wife. I’m still Charlie Burton (no name change yet – a much-debated topic on wedding blogs) but I’m a wife and for me it feels different.
Don’t get me wrong, there are so many positives to this change – I feel like we’re a real team, that each other comes first and before everyone else, even family now, and that we’re setting out on this amazing adventure together. We are committed to each other, to spending our lives together, to making our relationship and marriage work no matter what. But for someone who can be incredible hard on herself about not getting things ‘just right’, feeling like you’re being a ‘good wife’ can be challenging at times.
I feel this desperate need to keep a tidy house and clear up my clutter, to cook dinner every night, to prepare lunches for my husband to take to work, to make our house a home, to be a happy, healthy outgoing wife – that girl Mr Rigg first met who was a little bit more care-free and giggly. And that’s on top of all the other things we women want to be. If that’s what I think a wife should be, it’s hard.
These things seem to be made harder by the world around us giving the appearance that everyone else is living happier, more beautiful and fun lives. There are many days when I would desperately love people to think my life is beautiful and happy everyday, but this would be a lie. Even as I write I am on a small island amongst piles of dust sheets and sand paper, half painted walls and sockets bound up with masking tape, paint pots and a dusty set of ladders.
Weddings can be a bit like this, and having got through wedding planning I now know each of us must do things in our own way and it will turn out all right. Perhaps this is how I need to view being a wife, that I must just do it my way, a way that makes Mr Rigg and me happy and that’s all that really matters.
Is anyone else feeling overwhelmed as a new wife? Do you worry that you’re not doing a very good ‘job’ at being a good wife some days? Has anyone managed to get beyond these worries? Are you like me surrounded by the chaos and commitments of a house, pets, jobs, etc? If you are, I would love to feel this is place where you can share and unburden those worries and daily strife.
After the joy and happiness of our wedding day, how do we take a piece of it and bring it into our everyday lives?
Images: 1 + 2 Mark Tattersall Photography
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Categories: Planning
Tags: personal post
Jan on 8. December, 2011
Hi Charlie
First of all big hugs!
Secondly, you say this:
These things seem to be made harder by the world around us giving the appearance that everyone else is living happier, more beautiful and fun lives.
I’d say it often looks like that but is that really true? How many people are living a tranquil, well-ordered life in lovely surroundings smelling of freshly baked apple pie?
There are times in one’s life when we have some of the things we’d like but rarely all of them at the same time. We might be deliriously happy in a relationship and have a beautiful home but are overworked and fraught with worry about our children/elderly parents. We might have a happy family life but be living in a crumbling house we can’t afford to improve. We might even be new brides doing up a house surrounded by tins of paint and bills.
Why can’t “a good wife” be exactly the same person she was before the wedding but with the added commitment to her partner? There’s nothing in the wedding vows about tidying up clutter and if it didn’t bother either of you before the wedding, why should it be a big deal now?
I bet your husband just loves YOU and doesn’t expect (or want) you to become an unrealistically, idealised version of “a good wife” any more than he’d want the pressure of conforming to what “a good husband” is supposed to be.
Enjoy your chaos Charlie, while renovating your first home together. Be yourself and have fun with it now because the years pass too quickly and when you look back, would you rather remember the times you spent flicking paint at each other, while eating a quick SpagBol surrounded by buckets of plaster or the times you spent worrying about being “a good wife”?
XXX
CharlieB on 9. December, 2011
Thanks so much Jan for taking the time to reply so wonderfully 🙂 I’m one of those people who knows that everyone else isn’t living a rosier life…but I still feel the pressure of it all :S I loved what you said about enjoying my chaos, I need to remind my husband when he starts stressing over DIY projects that its better to enjoy ourselves doing them 🙂
Thank you so much xXx
Allie on 9. December, 2011
Hey Charlie,
Smile girl i’ts almost Christmas! The comedown after the wedding is difficult, I think its hard moving from something where you could control ever little detail and have a real ‘vision’ of how you wanted things to be to, well, real life where you can’t. I guess unlike your beautiful wedding where you could make things turn out how you wanted them to, the image of the ‘good wife’ isn’t really achievable without sacrificing a lot of the awesome things that make you you.
I say just be yourself, you’re still the same person. Make plans for an amazing Christmas instead! A x
CharlieB on 16. December, 2011
Just wanted to say a belated thank you for your lovely message – you are fab Allie and a great inspiration with how you have managed to juggle planning a truly handmade wedding as well as studying, and now with a demanding job. Sometimes it’s just good to share these worries and wobbles. Have a lovely Christmas too xXx
Katie – Perfect Days Vintage on 9. December, 2011
Charlie, I know exactly what you mean!!! Especially as in the first year of our marriage I decided to set up my own Vintage hire and Styling business whilst still working full time! I worry all the time about not being able to do it all and just like you am increadibly hard on myself!! Luckily when I have these moments my lovely husband reassures me that I DO NOT have to do it all. Just like you said, we are a team. He is there for me and I him, this is what really makes us a good partnership, not whether I have done everything on my never ending self imposed TO Do list!! Jan had it right in her reply to you – we should just be who we are as that is who our husbands wanted to marry after all!! Hope you are feeling a little less overwhelmed as your blog has certainly made me feel a bit more normal!xxx
CharlieB on 16. December, 2011
Hi Katie, likewise a much belated thank you for your lovely message and I’m pleased that through sharing my worries you feel a bit more normal 🙂 It’s also made me realise there’s lots of other people feeling like I do sometimes, so nothing to get too worried over. Hope you have had a good (if hectic) year and wishing you a lovely Christmas xXx