Liz Frazier is 30, lives in Kentucky, and loves her husband Mike and her dog Pickle.
Why did you decide to get married?
I got married because my husband wanted to be married to me, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by turning down his proposal. He was drunk, three months into our relationship, after a Bob Dylan concert when he proposed, and I was mad at him for taking a friend instead of me, and he had to call back the next morning to confirm that I had said “yes,” but he had a stronger worry about “forever” than I did. We knew we wanted to spend our lives together early on, and I think that marriage seemed like a way to cement our devotion to each other. Honestly, it was more “we’re in love and this is what people do when they’re in love.”
What did you think marriage would be like?
I will admit that we both had fairy-tale ideas about life, and I’ve been lucky that they mostly have been true for us, but I have relatives and friends who have had the harder side of life, and their lives, in and of themselves, have been filled with rotten apples, broken glass slippers, and beasts who never turned into princes. Because of our friends and family, I should have been more cautious, but I wasn’t and gladly have had no need to be. I know, without a doubt, that my husband loves, appreciates, and respects me. After 11 years together, I still get butterflies.
How do you feel about the word “wife”?
I love it because when my husband refers to me as his “wife,” it is always with a glow of pure happiness. I know that in the real world this is almost a cliche or I could be labelled naive, but it is true. He is still happy that I am his wife, his life partner, his equal, and, as he just said when I asked him, “his cuddle bear.”
Why did you make the decision you made about your name?
I wanted to take his last name because he is the last in his family line and my last name was awkward, but I wanted to keep mine because I am also the last in my family line, so I pushed out my middle name and slid my last name into the middle name slot (where I like it a lot better), and took his last name. We played with names a lot, though. It felt goofy to have him take my last name, and I didn’t want the hassle of a hyphenated name, but this worked for me.
Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?
I’m sure it has, but we are the essence of the “little old married couple.” We still feel like the same people we were when we got married. We have our share of life’s problems, but we get through them. As my mother-in-law says, “it’ll all come out in the wash.” For years, I always responded to that by saying, “Yes, but who has to do the washing?” Over time, though, I don’t question it. I have realized that even if we have done our best, we have no control over the outcome of some things. Things will either work out or they won’t, and we have to deal with it. One thing I am grateful for is the fact that we’ve never had a “I’m right, you’re wrong” type of argument.
What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?
I bitch, and he listens.
