How blogging is a lot like marriage

When you’re in any kind of serious relationship, be it a marriage or friendship, there’s commitment involved. Blogging takes a lot of that same hard work you have to put in to make it work. From the outside looking in, serious relationships and blogging can look so fun and easy. I mean, you just have to be “in love” with the person or the topic of interest and everything will magically fall into place, right? No. That’s why the credits roll after the lovebirds finally end up together in movies. When they do show married life in movies, they mostly show how difficult and problematic it is, which isn’t very accurate either. This brings me to my next point: Interest.

When you have lots of common interests, a marriage is way better than a friendship or dating relationship. Oftentimes, Rob and I see couples that have very little in common, and we wonder how it is that they get along at all. I don’t mean in their culture or race. Obviously, we are an interracial couple, and we don’t see being from different cultures a hindrance to a successful marriage. It may take a bit of work to try to explain what something is or means because of cultural differences, but to us, that just adds more variety and “color” to our experience. What I do mean is inherent interests, things we’ve always liked or had the potential to like before even knowing each other. For Rob and I, that’s particularly in our taste in music and movies, as well as topics. When I say “topics,” I mean things we love to research and discuss, but I’m especially talking about our convictions. Convictions change too, however, and so do interests, but they don’t change very much. Rob and I are both Christians, but our convictions on a few things have altered their course after having learned more and grown in our knowledge over the years.

With blogging, you have to really be interested and knowledgeable in what you’re writing about. You shouldn’t be “married” to a blog category just because you think it will be popular or successful. Your theme will vary from time to time, from topic to topic, but somehow all covered topics need to fit cohesively within the bigger picture. You want to stay true to your theme and make it easily recognizable to outsiders. Within many marriages, this faithfulness is physically symbolized by the wedding ring. A traditional marriage covenant between a man and a woman is easily recognizable by the way they lovingly and selflessly act towards each other, their home, God, and their community.

Community. Both a marriage and a blog involves it. In a marriage, this can be finding other strong couples to hang out with and learn and get support from. This also may include your church or community/neighbors. For a blog, you have to make genuine relationships with other bloggers and join networks, making yourself as visible as possible. I know it’s hard enough when you’re already spending so many hours on your own blog, but it’s important to be keep in communication with others. Collaborations and networking are essential to a successful online presence. You scratch their backs, and they scratch yours!