What is a Honeymoon?

What is a Honeymoon?

According to Marriage.com “celebrating love, unity, and the start of a lifelong journey together” defines it. I can’t disagree with that.

But what IS a honeymoon? If you have been around married people at all you have heard statements like, “the honeymoon doesn’t last” “enjoy it while you can” and “they’re still in the honeymoon phase.” After three plus decades of marriage I am here to disagree with these statements adamantly.

A honeymoon as conventionally thought of is a trip or getaway that newlyweds take. But, these vacations rarely go as planned. I have been witness to many honeymoons that went off course, one such story was my niece. She and her husband booked a cruise out of Galveston but a hurricane changed the plan and the newlyweds were not allowed to leave their hotel room for days. My niece recounts room service and playing lots of games together. They eventually went on a cruise later, but the honeymoon was nothing as they had planned. But they are happily married to this day.

There is a story that is seldom heard? “Well if this isn’t going the way I thought it would I will pack my bags and go home to mama!” No, with so much financial and planning investment, the inconveniences rarely cause us to give up on the honeymoon.

For many of us, the unexpected twists and turns make the best stories and memories taken away from the effort. We need to enter marriage with just such an attitude and mindset. If we compare the marriage accommodations with what we left at our parents house or fixate on a compliment left unsaid or toilet paper put on the roll in the up direction instead of down, we can quickly become bitter about the reality of marriage. However we can choose to use these twists as simple building blocks of learning for future understanding and teamwork.

If marriage were approached with as much planning, commitment and investment as the wedding ceremony and honeymoon, there would be no divorce.

So we can redefine the Honeymoon as “the long term commitment to celebrating love in all its phases, pursuing unity with an all in mentality, and treating each day as another start to the lifelong journey together.”

Happy Honeymooning!

Song of Solomon 8:7 Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.