Advice Column | Marital Musings
By Collin Hockenbury
I am getting married in June of 2023. Last week, my fiancé and I celebrated our -1st anniversary. I got her a card with a smiling bowl of soup on it, saying, “You make miso happy.”
And she does. I love my fiancé, Jenny, beyond words and cannot wait to marry her. Still, there are questions that come when you’re a year out from your wedding day. What will life be like this time next year? What will I be like? Will I suddenly need cheaters to read a menu on our date nights? Feel the irrepressible urge to buy a meat smoker and a premium set of golf clubs, neither of which I’m qualified to own? Or will I continue staying up past 11 on worknights, laying on my stomach in bed, watching clips of The Sopranos I’ve seen a hundred times while I keep giving Jenny a back rub even though she passed out 25 minutes ago?
For her sake and mine, I hope my fate exists somewhere in the middle, a happy marriage of the two futures, marked by both responsibility and fun. But until I get there, what can I expect from my engagement and wedding? How can I set myself up to be the best husband I can be?
I consulted a group of five friends to see what a married (or soon-to-be married) man’s typical day looks like and prompted them to recall some big moments with their life partners.
These are their stories.
*Morgan Freeman’s voice speaking* Before there is marriage, there is the proposal.
Asking someone to marry you isn’t unlike March of the Penguins when you really think about it. It is the beginning of a long journey, and the first webbed-footed step is really a knee bend. While you know the frozen path ahead is fraught with predators and arctic winds, you start waddling forward with all the boldness you can muster, because the destination is worth it: a life with the perfect penguin. The one you huddle against for warmth.
Man I hope this metaphor is holding up.
Personally, I blacked out when I took that first step. Speech entirely forgotten, head pounding under the weight of the moment, I brought Jenny out onto the balcony of our condo and spoke what might as well have been penguin before I dropped and asked the big question. But I’d set up flowers, and she seemed to gather what I was saying. I got the yes.
Waddling forward.
As it happens, blacking out isn’t uncommon during proposals. Patrick Kosse, business consultant and sunscreen connoisseur, had the same experience.
“I couldn’t handle having the ring anymore, so I made a dinner reservation at Le Relais on a Tuesday with a plan to propose in front of the planes landing at Bowman Field. Of course, it was raining, and Lucy raced out of the car to keep her hair from getting wet. I yelled across the parking lot and ran to the front door of the restaurant, where I ended up proposing. Completely blacked out and have no idea what I asked, but she said yes, so it doesn’t matter.”
What followed confirmed that everything had gone according to plan after all. “One of my favorite memories is that first half hour after getting engaged,” Kosse says. “Hardly anyone else knew, and we were able to just enjoy dinner, knowing ourselves.”
Oliver Brown, specialist in corporate dev and Rick and Morty, faced even more of an uphill battle.
“We were in Breckenridge, Colorado, a ski town near and dear to our hearts. The plan was to top pop the Q in a plaza right in the middle of Main Street, next to a tree that had served as the backdrop to many of our cherished photos throughout the years,” Brown explains.
“Cut to our post-dinner stroll the night before the act. Unprompted, Michaela turned to the exact spot where I was planning to bend the knee and said, ‘That's the breakup tree.’ Oh, shit.”
“To me, the place was special, a reminder of all the great memories we had there together,” Brown continues. “But unbeknownst to me, she’d always associated that tree and one of the aforementioned photos with a rocky patch in our relationship.”
So Brown did what countless penguins—I mean, men—before him have done. He pivoted.
“I decided that a small bridge overlooking a creek would be a solid alternative. After a sleepless night, I forced Michaela to wake up at 6 A.M. under the guise of getting a morning coffee, then proceeded to say zero words on approach to the bridge. Not only had the nerves fully set in, but I was trying to rehearse the new plan in my head. Halfway there she turned to me and asked, ‘Is everything alright?’ It was not.”
“‘Hey, Mic, look at the creek,’ I said when we got there. ‘The sign—what does it say?’”
Steaming that he’d woken her up at 6 for coffee, she didn’t play along and asked if he was ready to go. Then he hit the knee.
“After saying yes to my shit proposal, she skipped to the other side of the bridge, totally forgetting to take the ring and put it on her finger. A win’s a win.”
A victory for us all, my friend. Waddle on.
There’s the story of Grady Nutt, too, born salesman and Bourbon Lord. His is the perfect microcosm of the subtle differences in the lives of men and women—ironically taking place right before he and Heather were about to start one together. It’s also a reminder that sometimes, the best way to solve a problem is the simplest one.
“Heather was supposed to be done with her appointment at the salon by 6:15 and back to the house by 6:30. In the living room, I had rose petals scattered, the Spotify song queued, dozens of candles already lit. 6:15 rolls around and she texts me that she hasn’t even been called back yet.” Nutt remembers, “I was pacing so much, it’s a miracle our hardwood floors aren’t warped.”
So Nutt headed down to the concrete floors of his basement and started drinking.
“I poured myself a flight of Kentucky’s finest. After a few calming sips, Heather was finally en route.”
Shocked at the proposal and even more shocked at the sight of her parents a few moments later, in town from Mississippi, Heather was in awe of Nutt’s surprise, perhaps the greatest of her life. And if you ask me, surprise beginnings always beat surprise endings.
“After all that, it was time for another bourbon,” he says.
*Morgan again* With the proposal complete, the couples now turn their attention to planning the big day.
The stage I find myself in currently. The time for finding a venue, choosing a date, setting the guest list, scouting a band (my greatest individual responsibility in this process—if I hear “Uptown Funk” at my own wedding, I may resort to violence). The list goes on.
It is not totally unenjoyable—you see things start to come together, picture what the big day will be like. My future mother-in-law is an event-planning savant. My own mom has taken care of several details as well. But there are stressful moments.
When asked about the subject, Bradley Bringardner, real estate tycoon and former musical theater star, had two words of advice: “Buckle up.”
Nutt elaborates. “Wedding planning is like entering U.S. Customs and Border Protection after a Caribbean vacation with a couple of Cuban cigars in your bag. It seems like an interrogation, there are definitely trick questions and ‘I don’t care’ is a terrible answer.”
Having said that, Nutt explains, “Volunteering to handle certain things is a great idea for soon-to-be married guys out there.”
I really need to get on the band. And, apparently, expect a barrage of boxes once Jenny and I send the link to our registry.
“In the months leading up to the wedding, our home was assaulted by 10+ packages per week,” says Max Burge, Chicago area investment concierge and wearer of fine loafers. “Fine, sure, I get it. Outfits, napkins, gifts, wonderful. But I figured the packages would slow down once we were married. I could not have been more wrong.”
Maybe, like the Hogwarts letters, the packages will never stop coming. Come to think of it, I almost step on an Amazon package for Jenny once a day, waiting for us on our welcome mat. That’s my big surprise.
*Morgan* Finally, we arrive at the wedding nuptials.
There was acclaim and enthusiasm across the board when it came to the wedding day and honeymoon. Only Brown has yet to have these experiences, and, for him, they are just a matter of weeks away.
“Could you put into words the first time you tasted creme brulee?” Burge asks rhetorically. “Some feelings can’t be described with the words we have in the English language. Our wedding day, and the two weeks in Italy afterward, fit in the same category. “
Kosse agrees. “There’s just something incredible about all your friends and family in one spot for a weekend while celebrating the start of your life with the person you love.”
He goes on to describe his honeymoon. “Remember the genius who started a forest fire in California during a gender reveal? Well, Lucy and I had our honeymoon planned in Lake Tahoe and the fires were so bad that we canceled the week of. I ended up re-planning it the night before we got married. In the end, it was a blessing in disguise. Our trip to the Florida Keys was amazing.”
*Morgan* As with all things, the honeymoon period must come to an end. That is when the true journey begins—the journey of life anew.
“It's nice to have someone around that's a constant in your life,” Kosse says of his wife. “Even at times when you aren't directly interacting, it's just nice for them to be there.”
Kosse is right. In the end, companionship and love is what we all crave, why people get married in the first place. But once the deed is done, the habits and moments and home that were once your own are shared with your wife. Adapting to these changes requires patience, problem solving and, always, listening.
“This goes way back to my childhood days—I’m not a great listener,” Kosse admits. “Nothing worse than getting that ‘Are you even listening?’ when there’s legitimately nothing going on in your brain and you have no idea what your wife just said. I should probably be medicated for this, but I never got tested.”
For Bringardner, it’s all about being able to turn his ears off at the end of the night, as he believes sleep is a key to a healthy marriage. The value of real estate, his specialty, when it comes to mattresses cannot be overstated.
“Invest in a king-sized bed,” he advises. “Why I haven’t done so yet is beyond me.”
Burge is also highly committed to getting his eight hours a night.
“Bedtime was our first compromise. Originally, there was a wide dispersion. An 8:45 bedtime vs. an 11:00 bedtime. I didn’t yield. We settled on a 9:00-9:15 bedtime, lights off at 9:30. Buying her a kindle was the best 99 dollars—free shipping with Amazon Prime!—that I’ve ever spent.”
And then there is dinner.
“For a typical weeknight dinner, I’ll cook while Heather kicks her feet up and enjoys Bravo TV,” Nutt says. “As I sauté veggies or roast salmon, I can’t help but laugh at the frequency of cuss words bleeped out on these terrible shows. For me, cooking is a great way to wind down a hectic workday, while I avoid whatever the ‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ are arguing about. But on a real note, cooking dinner every night has been a great way for me to show Heather how much I appreciate the many things she does to keep the Nutt House functioning.”
The kitchen is not always a sanctuary for Brown.
“Common things can boil over into a small tiff, like when she leaves the cooking scissors on the counter for the hundredth time. But rather than dwell on my underlying OCD and anger management issues, I think it's more important to spend some time on conflict resolution. In marriage, if you can't find a way to move past the little things, you'll end up fighting about everything.”
His solution? Middle finger behind the back.
“Double birds if you're really pissed off,” Brown clarifies. “Let 'em fly—it's liberating. Is it the healthiest way to deal with a tiny annoyance? Probably not. But take the time to ask yourself, ‘When was the last time I unleashed the full power of the one finger salute?’ It just makes you feel so much better. Word to the wise—be wary of reflective surfaces.”
Burge understands his pain. He just deals with things a little more traditionally.
“What makes us fight? Crumbs. Honestly, it’s not a fight. It’s an accusation. A false accusation at that. See, there’s only one of us that toasts Trader Joe’s gluten-free English muffins—for dinner—leaving crumbs everywhere, then comes in the next morning wagging a finger. You can guess who it is.”
But what’s important is not who left the crumbs. It’s vacuuming them up together.
“There aren’t winners and losers in an argument when you’re married,” Burge explains wisely. “It’s just one person making the other feel bad if they ‘win.’ You both win by finding common ground, and you both lose when one of you wins. Logic might trump emotion in the office, but when you’re home with your wife, sometimes the best thing to do is just shut the hell up, let her vent, give her a kiss and agree with her.”
If we’re all able to realize that, who knows, maybe we’ll be more than just good husbands. Maybe we’ll even reap the rewards of fatherhood one day. Kosse has a baby girl on the way, and Bringardner is the proud dad of a baby boy and my future nephew, Henry.
“Embrace the chaos that marriage, and especially children, brings. It keeps life interesting and full of surprises,” says Bringardner. “Sure, the baby is usually covered in what looks and smells like feces. But his shit-eating grin makes up for it.”
