Jeanine Tegano Collins | theBrideScoop

MARRIED MONEY: Love, Honor & Compromise

January 23, 2012 By Jeanine Tegano Collins 1 Comment

My friend, who always asks poignant timely questions, requested her facebook friends weigh in on our definitions of compromise. It’s been my experience that whenever you’re questioning compromise, you’re grappling with the core values of your life. I instinctively responded to her post, “Giving in without giving up yourself in the process.”

Compromise (Photo from www.calbuzz.com)

Several responses later my friend interjected into the threaded discussion, “If you don’t compromise, does it mean you are selfish deep down?”

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MARRIED MONDAY: Love, Honor & Gifting

December 26, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins 3 Comments

‘Tis the season – for gifting. Gift giving was always something in my relationships – romantic and otherwise – I looked forward to. Not necessarily because I was lacking “things,” but because I was curious to see what “things” my special people thought most appropriate for me. It was an unspoken way of quoting the significance of each other in our lives, of better understanding our roles in relationship to each other, of making value tangible.

Hate Your Gift??? (Photo from www.lovelyish.com)

That all went out the window with my husband.

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MARRIED MONDAY: Love, Honor & See You Next Week!

December 19, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins 1 Comment

I’m on vacation, sort of…

Unplugged or Not! (Photo from www.crresearch.com)

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MARRIED MONDAY: Love, Honor & Some Time Alone

December 12, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins Leave a Comment

For the longest time, before my husband was my husband and up until about six months ago, he and I had a relationship full of alone time. We started off long distance, when missing each other constantly was a way of life. When he moved to Vegas, we transitioned from nothing to everything as he set up work and re-established himself in his hometown. Then, it was a nonstop changing schedule for years, up through our first year of marriage. We had very few days off together, which had its ups and downs: we bickered because we missed each other, we were productive in each other’s absences; our time together was rare and special. Recently, we shared a stretch where for the first time – ever – we were truly on the same schedule: early mornings with alarms before 5 a.m., early to bed, weekends off but busy with errands and preparations for the week ahead. Outside of work we were together.

Some Time Alone (Photo from www.datingish.com)

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MARRIED MONDAY: Love, Honor & Teamwork

December 5, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins 1 Comment

Team Collins.

I had to change my name when we got married because we had to be Team Collins.

Team Collins (Photo from www.authentictitansfanshop.com)

I loved my husband, but at the time, I loved my last name equally as much. For lots of reasons: it signified my family heritage, most of my friends called me by it, all that I had been and worked to become was wrapped up in that name. I knew the world as a Tegano.

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MARRIED MONDAY: Love, Honor & Equality

November 28, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins Leave a Comment

One of the reasons I felt very good about marrying my husband was that I believed we would have an equal marriage, one where we both gave and received in equal proportion to each other. I do, you do, we do. My turn, your turn. Yes, this was a preoccupation of mine because I was petrified of somehow losing myself or giving up parts of myself to move from “me” to “we”. Consequently, prior to saying, “I do,” we shared innumerable conversations about roles and responsibilities, supporting each others’ goals, even one day down the road envisioning how we would each contribute to raising our children. We were clearly on the same page with shared intentions and a common understanding of each others’ expectations for ourselves – if not completely – mostly.

Be Generous with Your Time (Photo from www.fbcg.com)

However, as the reality of different work schedules and commitments, varying interests and personal goals has set in, I have had to wonder if equality in marriage is really possible?

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MARRIED MONDAY: Cultivating An Attitude of Gratitude

November 21, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins Leave a Comment

In light of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be timely to draw a connection between the concept of gratitude and marriage. Busy week, so I was backed up against the late Saturday hours doing research-lite: 30 minutes of solid googling. I came across an abundance of self-helpy rambling articles on keeping journals and using daily positive affirmations of gratitude – all of which sounded good and great and wholly unoriginal.

Cultivating Gratitude (Photo from www.zoeandthebeatles.wordpress.com)

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MARRIED MONDAY: To Love, Honor and Clean?

November 14, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins 3 Comments

I have many gifts. Cleaning is not one of them. This doesn’t mean I don’t like a clean house. I just don’t like to do it. In my reality, this is why cleaning services exist. In my husband’s reality, you do it yourself. What happens when your realities clash? Is it possible to love and honor your partner without cleaning the toilet bowl yourself?

Making Sexy Work While Cleaning - NOT! (Photo from www.sexymaidoutfit.net)

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MARRIED MONDAY: From Fairytale to Faceplant

November 7, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins 2 Comments

Everyone loves a good story: colorful characters, conflict that makes us marvel, a conclusion that inspires our imaginations. The Kardashian/Humphries wedding is an example of how happily ever after needs to be more than just a good story to work out. It needs, well – a good dose of reality.

One of my secret (er… it was a secret) vices is watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians. (I recognize by watching this show I am part of the problem and this is definitely an area in my life I fall short of positively changing the world – but it is what it is.) I don’t subscribe an ounce of reality to her or her family. It’s pure laughter and eye rolls for me. Much like the ending of The Hills, a few television seasons ago (yes – I watched that, too – judge away), as Kristen drove off into the distance a screen moved across the sound stage revealing a production set and cameras and crew. It was all a façade, made for television – admitting the intentional blur between the lines of fairytale and reality.

Kim Kardashian Wedding Dress #1 (Photo by Michael Simon)

Kim Kardashian Post-Divorce Announcement (Photo by FlynetPictures)

And we – I’m not the only one who took part – enjoyed watching the antics and frivolities of that finely tuned, filmed for television world unfold. True, sometimes I felt just a little dumber at the end of a thirty minute episode but there are worse things I could do with thirty minutes of time. Thirty minutes, once a week, is but a blip in my reality-based existence. However, someone like Kim Kardashian spends days and months in her made-for-television world leading anyone who considers her situation to wonder: how do you distinguish where television ends and real life begins?

In vowing not to spend an inordinate amount of time immersed in this latest Kim crisis, I quickly googled a few key words and browsed the top headlines to stay current. The gist, thus far, is that Kim believed she rushed into things and shouldn’t have gotten married but didn’t know how to stop the wheels she had already set in motion. Believe her or not, if you’ve ever gotten married or are close with a bride or groom who has, you know that weddings and the pressures of the expectations of ourselves, our families and our friends about this day can spiral away from reality and into the realm of imaginary quicker than you can say, “STOP!”

Not a good way to start off a real life together but it’s often how it happens.

My husband and I were together almost three years before we said, ”I do”. He moved from another state to give the relationship a real go and, after our first engagement (yes – I said first), we broke up. Prior to breaking up, we’d started planning the wedding. One hundred and fifty guests had been narrowed down from our nearly 200 close friends we didn’t know how to marry without. It was a country club reception with a plated dinner and classic invitations with black script. Our fairytale day had been set in motion.

Our happily ever after was another thing, though. While there was always love between us, our real-life issues of work and money, communication and identity, personal aspirations and fear of failing them were not fully explored nor easily articulated. And there’s nothing like the stress of an impending wedding and the idea of forever to bring up what’s been overlooked. Thankfully, we were able to see, which led us to postpone. That led to more questions, pressures and uncertainties, which led us to break-up. That gave us more time: time to be alone, time to talk, time for a perspective-shift, time to assess what was important and what wasn’t, what was real and what was fairytale. That led to a breakthrough, which led to us.

Our actual wedding was ultimately very simple. As we went about creating this event, my husband and I had a saying we filtered all our decision making through: “Remember to keep the important things important”. We had little more than thirty guests, family and our absolute best friends. We married in the church our families both attended and we had a simple luncheon reception (with super delicious food) at a lovely restaurant afterwards. I called everyone instead of sending invitations and followed up with an evite just to make sure they knew it was happening this time. I ate chicken tacos with some girlfriends the night before and a bagel with cream cheese the morning of the wedding. My sister and maid of honor did my hair and make-up; I looked good but still like me. And it was she who drove me down the street to the church.

Our day was steeped in reality, as we had learned we wanted to live. Honestly and in reality, together.

I don’t know if that makes for a great television show or even if I’d choose to watch it. But it might just be the story that Kim secretly wishes she could be living. After all, no one really wants to be alone or look foolish in front of millions of people or realize that in your attempted steps forward you’ve been cycling backwards. The thing is, whether you’re a television superstar or a classroom teacher, we all want it all.

And in reality – you don’t get it all. But if you build your life on what is real, I have found, you often get what you need. What real life person could be disappointed with that?

Jeanine Tegano Collins is a dreamer and lover of all things impossible and magical… sometimes making the normalcies of day-to-day life less than enthralling. Thankfully, she has a loving husband who reminds her of the virtues of reality. To understand the space between the fairy tale and reality – of life and marriage – she writes. When she’s not writing, Jeanine is busy dancing with her high school students. Check back every Monday for life after the honeymoon and follow Jeanine on twitter or friend her on facebook.

MARRIED MONDAY: Not Quite What I Imagined

October 31, 2011 By Jeanine Tegano Collins 7 Comments

It’s Saturday night around eleven o’clock. We live in Las Vegas. It’s Halloween weekend. We’re under 30 and the only major responsibilities we have are to pay the mortgage and remembering to feed the dog. The possibilities are endless – right?

Welcome to Jeanine's World (Photo from www.lasvegastvshow.com)

So guess where I am…

Nope – not roaming the Las Vegas Strip decked out in Halloween regalia. I am at home, a solid 20 minutes away from the Strip, on my couch with the laptop aglow. Dog passed out on my leg, husband passed out up in bed.

If you had asked me how this Saturday night was going to unfold, I would have answered something different. Actually, if you had asked me where I would be living and how I would be spending my time, I would have answered something different. If you would have asked me to describe the man of my dreams, I would have answered with a description that doesn’t quite match up to the man I ultimately married. In other words – this night, my life and even my man are not quite what I imagined they’d be.

At times, those realizations have left me utterly confused and deeply disappointed. Years of expectations rooted in my wandering imagination had not been met. How could I be anything but let down? And in other moments, moments less clouded with the fairy tale expectations of an immature girl, the reality of my life and all the people and happenings in it stirs a deep sense of joy and gratitude within me. How is it that the same realizations can evoke such different feelings in one person?

Our big plans for the night were abandoned due to exhaustion from hectic workweeks. (Who knew committing to your career would be so exhilarating and draining?) I live in my hometown, a city I’d have placed big money on my leaving, and I spend my time teaching dance to high school kids when I was sure I was destined for law school and a career in politics. (Turns out dance and kids are way more fun!) I’m married to a man I met in the ninth grade and re-friended again in college. He isn’t famous or especially wealthy. He didn’t set the world on fire with an ingenious invention. What’s worse – I haven’t either. He’s simply my most favorite person.

In short, this holiday night out that never was mirrors the somewhat ordinary path I seem to be forging in my life. It’s all so not where I thought I’d be or who I thought I’d be with or who I thought I’d end up becoming.

Which really makes me wonder: Why am I so indescribably happy about it all?

“Jeanine”, my husband calls for me from upstairs. “It’s 11:40 – come up to bed.”

“I’m writing”, I yell back. “I’ll be up soon.”

“Okay, love you.”

I smile. I love him too.

And somehow loving him grounds me in the reality that all the pretty awesome things I didn’t imagine that make up my real life are the reasons I am so happy. My husband has often said to me in my moments of indecision and revision: you can do anything but you can’t do everything but you still have to do something.

Perhaps it’s in choosing those somethings, the choices you make, that you find your happy ending – even if it’s an ending you didn’t quite imagine.

Jeanine Tegano Collins is a dreamer and lover of all things impossible and magical… sometimes making the normalcies of day-to-day life less than enthralling. Thankfully, she has a loving husband who reminds her of the virtues of reality. To understand the space between the fairy tale and reality – of life and marriage – she writes. When she’s not writing, Jeanine is busy dancing with her high school students. Check back every Monday for life after honeymoon and follow Jeanine on twitter or friend her on facebook.