Category Archives: marriage advice
Ali Daddo on 27 years of marriage: “Loving Cam way more than myself was a disaster.”
I was 20 years old when I met Cam. We were engaged after two and a half months and married one year later. This year we will have been married for 27 years.
I feel a mix of exhausted and exhilarated when I think about that. Having our relationship somewhat played out in the media as the “Golden Couple”, I expect people must think itʼs been all rainbows, love hearts and cupids singing us to sleep at night.
While there have been many moments of those experiences, itʼs also been, up to our waist in mud, sweating, back breaking, shovelling with blistered hands kind of work.
Weʼve come so incredibly close to splitting. I have hated, loved, hated Cam more times than I can count. Each time we nearly separated, we dug back into the “shit” and grew. We learned a little more about ourselves and each other and what love really looks and feels like. What commitment means.
Cameron Daddo and wife Ali in 2014. Image source: Getty.
There is a dance that we do. Sometimes we dance together, sometimes apart, and my least favourite, the dance where our toes have been smashed by the other and we lie bleeding on the dance floor. Those times can take a while to heal and usually need a bunch of kind-hearted women to carry you off the dance floor and bandage you up.
Iʼm a child of fairy tales and magic, I love “LOVE”. While that may be a beautiful thing, the fairy tale thing had me in a trap. I didnʼt realise how much I needed to smash that ideology into pieces.
Cam was Australia’s Prince Charming and I saw myself not as a Princess, but more like the ugly stepsister who was lucky enough that the shoe did fit. A tricky beginning to any long term relationship.
Once I was down in the trenches, getting real, I learned this kind of inequality of love canʼt survive. Loving Cam way more than myself was a disaster.
And so when faced with nearly losing myself and him, we grew, we battled, screamed and dug deeper.
There is something really beautiful about being with someone from such a young age.
We have been there for each other for so many life changing experiences. So much history resides in our marriage. There is scars sure, there are patterns that still need tending to or else we find ourselves repeating behaviour that is just plain destructive.
Do I recommend it for my children? Probably not.
If my kids came home after two and a half months and said they were engaged Iʼd be concerned. Very.
But then again sometimes you do know, you know who you love and if itʼs really unconditional then you can traverse all sorts of mountains and rivers. Longevity in a marriage takes work, work to be devoted to yourself and your partner.
We have a lot of years left.
I know that eventually we will be grandparents together, we will be awesome grandparents of that I have no doubt. Iʼm grateful to have met Cam in the age before mobile phones and social media. Itʼs an added pressure that a new relationship does not need. The phones are the third wheel in the mix.
Between documenting the date, what food is being eaten and what clothes are being worn – it’s all a bit much. Not to mention the adorably cute couple selfie. Everyone “looks” like they are so in love and having the time of their lives. Too much pressure! Too much comparison.
Basically I have no idea if anyone should or shouldnʼt marry young. What works for one wonʼt work for another. It comes down to simply how much you both want to make the marriage work.
I do know this.
One basking in the sunshine sipping margaritas unaware while the other is tunnelling down into the depths of self change and awareness does not work, no matter how much you love the fact he/she is getting a tan and promising to make you a margarita when you are done digging.
Marriages fall apart for all sorts of reasons, and some really need to end. I feel fortunate to love someone so deeply and have that returned and that we were both willing to ride that roller coaster together.
I hate roller coasters by the way, I prefer the carousel, but thatʼs relationships for you.
20 of Our Favorite Celebrity Couples Share Their Best Advice on Marriage
Traditionally, Hollywood relationships get a bad rap and this year’s slew of gut-wrenching celebrity splits haven’t exactly done much to help. But for every headline-making breakup, there are dozens of other celebrity couples out there who are making it work, and using the spotlight to show the rest of us how it’s done.
Take, for example, Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn, who fell in love on the set of Swing Shift 35 years ago and have been together ever since. Or Jay-Z and Beyoncé, who have proven that love can endure despite its ups and downs. Or John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, who show us daily on social media (and every once in a while, via chart-topping songs) what #relationshipgoals really look like.
These couples—and many, many more—have shown us that the rom-com worthy onscreen love that most of us dream about is possible IRL. Read on as they share their best marriage advice, and spill their secrets for how its done.
Why I caved and took my husband's surname
It took this mum six years to decide she’d adopt her husband’s name. But what made her change her mind?
When I met my husband I was 26. I was so free in every sense of the word, I was child free, mortgage free, I was even a literal freelancer.
I had, for years, touted my anti-marriage philosophies to anyone who would listen. I didn’t believe in tying yourself to one person legally and thought the whole ceremony part was really strange.
I even went so far as to say if I ever did get married (and I wouldn’t) it would only be a small, backyard thing anyway and even still, I don’t really believe in the institution as a whole, you guys.
Why these celeb marriages stood the test of time
Well then I met my man and it only took eight months of knowing him to say yes (without hesitation) to his proposal of marriage.
The idea of a public acknowledgment of his awesomeness suddenly appealed and I threw myself into wedding planning.
Aware of the huge backflip I’d done on my former declarations, I did set out to have the ultimate feminist wedding. I wasn’t going to wear a veil, be “given away” and most importantly, I would be keeping my name.
Spoiler alert, I did end up wearing a veil and as my Dad nearly cried at the idea of not walking me down the aisle, I was, in fact given away.
The last bastion of my feminist marriage plight was that I did indeed keep my name.
My name was my own
Now, apart from my willingness to bend like a pretzel on all the other wedding “traps” I was so proud to have kept my name and loudly told anyone who mistook me for my married name that I had retained my own name thankyouverymuch.
You’d think I would have learned from above.
Four years later I gave birth to our daughter and I suddenly had a burning desire to be a family in the symbolic sense.
I wanted us all to share a name. Of course we were already a family and nothing could dilute what we had as a little gang of three but it was something that crept in the corner of my mind and wouldn’t leave me alone for months.
Around her first birthday, I changed my email name. Just my email name. It felt fine, toe in the water. I decided it would be my work name. Just like how women keep their maiden name professionally but take on their partners name in “life”… but awkwardly in reverse.
Then we opened a new bank account and I thought, oh I’ll get my new / work / family name put on that. I toyed with changing my Facebook name but instead decided to try out a hyphenated version.
When it came to tax time, my accountant looked at my perplexed and asked breathlessly, “There are three versions of you out there. WHAT is your name?” and I couldn’t answer.
Hey, we’re the Robertsons. Image: supplied
I decided I would do it.
I would take on the family name. But then I saw the paperwork. Surely in the glow of newlywed life, without children and all the other life admin that piles up as you get older, that MOUNTAIN of paperwork seems kind fun.
But to me it was daunting and I half filled it all out twice and somehow never found the motivation to finish it. None of this was helped by the fact that my husband couldn’t care either way what I call myself.
He was even happy to take my name on. But some part of me just suddenly wanted the ancient ritual.
When we found out we were pregnant with our son, I couldn’t ignore it any longer.
The full backflip had to be made.
Of course, you really can’t change your name mid-pregnancy as all the records and tests could get lost and it became a whole thing for me. I questioned if the universe was putting these obstacles in my way because deep down I had a problem with the concept.
But when my son was born and the four of us sat on the hospital bed together I committed to the biggest backflip of my life and decided to change my name. Sometimes I think we struggle so much with what powers we do and don’t have, walking through the world as women that the small and less significant things become little victories for us.
I think, for me, keeping my name was something I could control, a change I could affect on a small scale against a larger landscape where I felt less than equal.
But I know there’s no one controlling me inside the family that is this name.
I’m the Mum, everyone knows I’m the big boss.
Married to an angry yeller
Adapted from a recent online discussion.
Dear Carolyn: My husband is wonderful, supportive, kind. He truly is. We have been together a long time and love each other dearly.
We do have one recurring issue. When he gets angry, he yells. This is not necessarily at me; for example, the IRS messed up our taxes and he started yelling about how horrible they were.
But I often cringe at his yelling – which is sometimes directed at me – and, honestly, I cringe at his anger in general. I came from a home where yelling was the precursor to something worse, which he knows and is very supportive about.
So he yells, I get upset and (often) defensive, we fight.
He says he feels like he can’t express anger around me, which I can see is totally unfair. I feel like he gets so angry, so quickly, over so many things that it makes me reluctant to tell him things that are negative, which is obviously not fair either. I know we are both at fault: He needs to control his temper and I need to be less sensitive.
Any ideas? We have considered seeing a marriage counselor, but it has never gotten that bad.
– Oversensitive Wife of Angry Husband
What’s your definition of “that bad”? Cringing once daily, versus once weekly? Holding back information all the time versus most of the time?
Please just talk to someone. It’s not an admission of defeat and not a source of shame. It’s relationship health care.
You might want to go solo first though. You make so many hedges and excuses for your husband in one paragraph that I don’t feel confident in your ability to speak freely in a joint session.
You’re not happy with things this way. You are not each other’s sanctuary. Please trust your gut.
Read more:
Re: Angry Husband: Speaking from experience: The husband’s yelling makes the wife anxious. Does NOT matter who he is angry at – she is on the receiving end.
We were there, I almost left. We saw marriage counselor together and each have a therapist. Mine helped me recognize it wasn’t all my fault or responsibility to calm him or to mitigate things so he wouldn’t get angry. The marriage counselor actually had to point out my body language to him to show what his anger was doing to me.
He is now on meds to control the PTSD and anger.
What a wonderful change for the positive! There’s hope, but it takes both of you working on it.
– Hope
Re: Yelling: I used to be a yeller and thought it was no big deal, even telling friends they need to just accept me that way. I thought I was just expressive.
Then I spent an extended time with family and witnessed how caustic and toxic yelling and anger can be. The cost to the people I love is just too much.
I’ve spent several years actively dismantling that anger reflex and practicing gentle responses. The difference in MY life, let alone in my relationships, is priceless. I hope they can both stop excusing it as remotely OK.
– Used to Be a Yeller
Excellent, thank you. And yay for you, not just for the courage to admit fault, but also the dedication to change.
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