A "Normal" Marriage

Did you catch the profile on the Obama's marriage in this weekend's New York Times Magazine? It's definitely worth reading.

I have admired the Obama's marriage (or at least their public portrayal of it) since the primary campaign. As a young woman, it was refreshing to see what looked like a "real" marriage in the public realm. When they hold hands, it seems genuine. When they danced at the Inauguration, it was like a fairy tale. They seem to be reminding me everyday that that sort of relationship is achievable.

Michelle Obama mentions during their interview that the reason they decided to do a profile on their marriage wasn't to show how easy everything is when you're madly in love. Quite the opposite actually. Talking about difficult times earlier in their marriage, the First Lady says: “'This was sort of the eye-opener to me, that marriage is hard,' the first lady said with a little laugh. 'But going into it, no one ever tells you that. They just tell you, ‘Do you love him?’ ‘What’s the dress look like?’ ”

The Obamas had to create a "new normal" for themselves early in their marriage. They quickly realized that their marriage wasn't going to look like the cookie cutter norm, home at 5:00 for dinner every night. But they made it work. They made a new normal for themselves.

As a young woman in a committed relationship, I struggle with this. I feel a lot of pressure that my relationship be "normal," that we seem to be in love, that we act in the "right" ways. But why does it have to be normal? If we are in a healthy relationship that works for us, it works for us.

So how do we shake the pressure to be just like everyone else? Yuck - no one told me being a twenty-something was going to resemble 7th grade in more ways than one...