Marriage Month: Ugly is Forever

My grandparents are awesome. They’ve been married for 58 years (not quite the sixty I claimed on Tuesday…my bad) and are just as cute now as they were then.

I mean really. This photo is just the best.

It’s no surprise, given that he married the prettiest girl in town, that my cousins and I often received this dating advice from Grandpa:

We always laughed and rolled our eyes, but let’s be honest here. Grandpa’s totally right; everybody wants to marry someone foxy.

Tall and good-looking were definitely things I was looking for in a prospective husband. Of course I lucked out on both counts and fell in love with David, who is taller than me and has those Danish genes really working in his favor. The longer we are together, the more attractive I find him. Partly because he’s aging really well (again with those genes) and partly because of this next bit.

See, as important as it is to be attracted to your spouse, there’s more to that attraction than just physical appearance. After all, as Grandma says:

And as right as Grandpa is, she’s right too.

Before I was married I went on lots of dates with lots of different guys. Some were reeeeally handsome. Others, not so much. But when a handsome dude talks to you only twice in the entirety of the evening, he loses a lot of his appeal. And when an awkwardly-cute-in-an-unconventional-kinda-way dude makes you laugh and think and feel like someone important, his attractiveness rating goes way up. You find yourself wanting to see him again because he’s fun, sweet, and maybe even a little bit cuter than you originally thought.

But we’re not talking about dating. We’re talking about marriage. And guess what.


The same principles apply.

Being married doesn’t give you the right to let yourself go…and I don’t mean you shouldn’t gain weight or wear yoga pants all day. I mean you need to still be the kind of person your spouse would want to date. Are you still adventurous? Do you still have interesting conversations? Will you still tip your waiter generously, even though you’re not really trying to impress anyone?

If you want your partner to find you attractive, be an attractive person.

When you are disengaged, selfish, ungrateful, thoughtless, and demanding, it’s not pretty.

When you are engaged, selfless, grateful, thoughtful, and giving, you are stunning.

It’s as Roald Dahl illustrated so well in his book The Twits:

When you have lovely thoughts, you have lovely actions, and when your actions are lovely, you are lovely.

And nobody wants to wake up next to a face that makes them cringe, no matter how objectively beautiful it is. Pretty is as pretty does, y’all.

You may also enjoy:

On Marriage: An Interview with Mikaela of “All Things Bright and Beautiful” Marriage Month: On Forgiveness Marriage Month: An Introduction