Over the next several weeks, I’ll be highlighting the Top 10 Marriage Blogs who made the list here at The Marry Blogger late last year! I hope you enjoy some of the stories shared here from these awesome communicators – and their reasons for writing (and caring) so much about marriage.
This week, Alisa Bowman from Project Happily Ever After:
For those that don’t know, Why and how did you start Project Happily Ever
After?
I had survived a miserable marriage. By miserable I mean:
- Sex was not happening. It had been so long since we’d had sex that I could not remember the last time we’d done it—and I didn’t care.
- We had nothing to say to each other. We’d go out to dinner and stare into space.
- I was planning his funeral on the off chance he might conveniently drop dead.
Oh, it was bad. But 12 marital improvement books and 4 months later, we were on the mend—and we’ve grown happier and happier ever since. It was after I emerged from that experience that I wanted to connect with others. I had felt so alone when my marriage was bad. I’d thought I was the only wife who was struggling. I thought my friends had all married good men—and that I was the
only failure who’d chosen wrong.
But once things improved and I started talking about it all, I found that lots and lots of other people were going through the same struggle. But no one was talking about it. Everyone was too ashamed. So I started the blog and started writing about marriage from an honest, authentic place. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do claim to not be ashamed about all of my problems.
ProjectHappilyEverAfter is a safe place for recovering divorce daydreamers. No matter what you are going through, it’s a place where you can find support.
Tell me a bit about you and your marriage (then and now!)…
As I said, things were once pretty bad. We had a communication problem that had been worsened by the stress of my husband opening a business (that did not become profitable for 2+ years) within months of us having a baby. I was the sole breadwinner and parent for 2 to 3 years, and our marriage completely fell apart during that time.
We’ve since worked on things and I can now say that my husband is my biggest supporter. When nothing is going right in my life, I sometimes think about him and I smile and think, “At least I have him.” We’ve come a long way.
Whats been the best part about running Project Happily Ever After?
I love the community. I love connecting with other people. I love learning from others. The blog has repeatedly proven to me that people are good and kind. Everyone struggles in life. It’s a fallacy to believe that some people are perfect and some are flawed. We’re all flawed.
What have you learned about your own marriages in the process?
I’ve learned that a marriage is a dynamic organism, one that grows and changes with the moment. I’ve learned that I cannot control my husband. I cannot force him to change. I cannot mold him into a different human being. But I can work on myself, and in so doing I can greatly improve my happiness and his.
Do you have any favorite thoughts or tips to offer someone who might be
struggling in their marriage?
The two most important lessons I learned are as follows:
1 . Look in the mirror. Own up to the role you play in your marital unhappiness. I know. This was a tough one for me, too. I wanted to believe that my husband was 100 percent to blame. He wasn’t. At the root of our marital problems was my reluctance to ask for help. Once I became more assertive, our marriage completely turned around.
2. Be a leader. Every marriage needs a leader. If you are the person who is reading marital improvement blogs and books, then you are the leader. It might not be fair and it might not be what you want. It just is. Do you want fair or do you want a happy marriage? If it’s the latter, then give up your ideas of fairness and lead your spouse to a happier place. Be the big person in
your marriage.
Alisa made it to the Top 10 Marriage blogs (for the second time!) in 2010, and her new book Project: Happily Ever After: Saving Your Marriage When the Fairytale Falters
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
“It might not be fair and it might not be what you want. It just is. Do you want fair or do you want a happy marriage? If it’s the latter, then give up your ideas of fairness and lead your spouse to a happier place. Be the big person in your marriage.”
In what I’ve read in books and seen on TV, that to me is what holds a lot of people back. “It isn’t fair”. People let the “it isn’t fair” hold them back from what they want and are either in denial about what is more important to them or are just plain being cowardly. If I want a better relationship with my wife, I’ll go after her even if I don’t think I should have to for whatever lame-brained reason I’ve thought up. If she thinks I’m avoiding her and it isn’t fair that she should have to pursue me, she has to make the same kind of decision.
Ok, getting off a soap box before I get started.