Are you soon to be married, or a newlywed? In this article I share some of the things marriage has taught me in my short time in it that has been helpful in maintaining a peaceful and happy home. I’m sure you’ll find something to pick from it and emulate in your own marriage. Don’t forget to leave a comment at the end of the article to share some of your experiences with us too, or if you’re yet to be married let me know what you thought of the article.
Going into Marriage with Realistic Expectations Prepares You to Manage Situations as they come up
I had an advantage when I went into marriage. The advantage is that my husband and I have had a great friendship that lasted years before we started our courtship, so being friends we already established a good rapport. So even though we knew we still had some challenges when it came to sorting out issues, we knew we would always be open to communication and therefore we’d be able to talk things out as they come up, until we perfect our conflict resolution skills.
I believe it is normal in the first year of marriage to have a lot of disagreements and arguments as you both adjust to your new life, especially when you both have lived independently for a long time. Now coming together as one, having someone in your space all the time because it’s no longer only yours anymore, and being responsible for them and the home especially for the woman can be a lot to adjust to. So during that process of adjusting, issues normally will come up often. And we both knew this and went into our marriage with realistic expectations.
We didn’t go in thinking it will always be rosy. We knew our personalities can and does easily clash sometimes. Going in with realistic expectations has helped us adjust quickly in our marriage. When there was a misunderstanding and then an argument we were quick to remember that we knew this was going to happen so how do we fix it. And we are often quick to get into fixing mood without letting things linger unnecessarily. And I’ve learnt a few things so far that has made arguments a rare thing in our home.
Marriage is a place where learning never ends. The more years you stay in a marriage the more you learn and get to know your partner better. As at writing this article I am four months and three weeks old in my marriage. And compared to when I just got married, I have learnt some things about marriage that even though I knew some of them before getting married, I didn’t fully understand until seeing it play out in real life. These things I have learnt in this short time has helped us a lot and our relationship, and how we deal with each other gets better everyday.
The first few months may be your hardest
If you were, or have been an independent woman for some years and now you’re soon to get be married, be prepared! Your first few months of marriage may just be your toughest time in the relationship.
Before marriage I lived a very singular life for many years, over a decade. I did whatever I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I cooked when I wanted. I went out or slept in when I wanted. I could choose to watch movies all day and never cook that day and just eat junk foods. I lived a lazy life really. I’m fortunate to have a business that doesn’t require me to go out often and I didn’t have anyone to consider their feelings about when I did what.
Also for a long time I thought I couldn’t live with someone because I loved my space so much. I rarely even accepted visitation from best friend and colleagues. I usually just wanted to be left alone. Now getting married that lifestyle was forced to change. I wake up in the morning and first thing I do is think about what the husband would eat. When we got married my husband had a few weeks leave from work and I gave myself a month off any business to just relax and recover from the stress of the wedding planning, so we were indoor everyday for the first month, and I had to make something available for us to eat at least twice a day.
I couldn’t feel like I didn’t want to be bothered anymore. I had to be bothered whether I wanted to at that moment or not. And it wasn’t that hubby was making me do anything, but not wanting to feel like the wife that doesn’t take care of her husband, you force yourself up to do things sometimes when you are not feeling up to it. Although I happen to have a very understanding husband, if I say I wasn’t feeling up to cooking he tells me don’t bother let’s go eat out; or if it’s one of the times he’s in the mood he will make us breakfast. But that’s another thing, I always want to do things myself because I like to have things my way. So even when help is being offered by hubby sometimes, I’ll still rather do it myself. 🤦 The only time I excitedly let hubby cook is when I know he’s going to make Noodles. He does that better than I can or care to do. 😀
So like I said before it’s a lot of adjustment hitting you at once. You could find yourself getting easily irritated over something hubby said or did when the truth is you’re just overwhelmed. A part of you can even start to ask yourself why you got married. Marriage is the most beautiful and fulfilling thing that I have done in my life and I have a very enviable relationship with my husband. But to deny that it doesn’t come with some stress especially from cooking and cleaning and doing the dishes ALL the time is not telling the full story. I actually have a new found respect for married women with children. If taking care of the husband and the home can feel overwhelming sometimes, just imagine when the babies come. May God help us.
After almost five months in marriage, I’m settled into the lifestyle now and it no longer feels like a big deal, but it took a few months to get here, which is why I say the first few months may be your hardest because the differences in your character is more pronounced when you start living together as husband and wife. Plus the lifestyle change for the independent woman. This can make some women start to feel very frustrated and start throwing the D word (Divorce) carelessly around. They don’t usually mean it, just that Change isn’t easy for some people.
The way out is communication! Communicate in love. Ask for help from your partner if you feel you need it. I thank God everyday for the husband he gave me. He’s very strong willed just like me but he also can be patient. When we just got married and there was a little misunderstanding, I was quick to say I should never have gotten married. Deep down I was never serious when I said it because I knew how blessed I felt, but when I was angry or irritated I usually just rant on. But hubby was patient and would calmly talk to me, and when he did I could feel his love for me from his words. And God! I love that man too, so much.
On my part, after all the ranting I evaluate myself privately. I try to be honest with myself and get to the root of why I was so angry. And when I realized there was a good ground for my anger I tried to express it in a better way, better tone.
Also I asked for help from hubby. I told him how overwhelmed I was feeling. I am not someone that enjoys cooking and washing plates, things I now have to do everyday. Hubby doesn’t like cooking and doing dishes either. But I do what I have to do. And hubby helps every now and then with some of the other chores in the house, sometimes even cooks and does the dishes, although rarely 😀. He’s even suggested we get a Help to help me out, but I thought we could manage by ourselves for awhile since it’s just the two of us for now. As helpful as Helps can be, at the end of the day they are a third party in a home. A stranger. And I don’t trust easily. So while I know I would have to give in to hiring one at some point, I’m in no rush to do so.
I’ve learned to manage my responsibilities as a wife. Hubby has his and I have mine. We just each need to play our part and make sure to let the other person know that we appreciate their efforts, and in the case of the woman the husband can assist when he can, even though all he does is stay in the kitchen with the wife for awhile as she cooks and distract her from the stress of what she’s doing by sharing stories about his day or flirting with her. That goes a long way to help the mindset of the woman and how she sees herself in the marriage. There’s no time I serve food and we finish eating that my husband doesn’t say Thank You to me. Those two words as simple as they are has a lot of effect on me, how I see myself in his life. I remember the first few weeks in marriage, there were thoughts running through my head, like this marriage thing is just a place where a woman just serves the man while he relaxes. I mean a husband and wife will both go out and have a stressful day but when they return home one gets to go relax while the other slaves away in the kitchen. I even asked myself, is this my life now, a life of serving someone?
But that was the wrong mindset. And a partner’s attitude towards the efforts the wife puts into the home will determine if the wife sees herself as a slave serving a master and starts to resent him for it or if she accepts her role as a helpmate and sees herself as a partner who is playing her part towards a common goal, to make a happy home.
Also compromise is another thing that a couple must give in every now and then. You can’t be too rigid. When there’s a disagreement about something the other person wants, you must meet each other half way. My husband and I do that when need be to accommodate the other person’s needs and or desires so everyone is happy.
You have to recommit to your partner everyday
I am someone that usually wants to pull myself from a situation the moment it starts to feel difficult. I can quickly forget all the good times and the promises I made in those good times and just say fvck it. So few weeks into our marriage I had moments when I questioned my decision to get married and said to my husband I don’t think I can do this. He looked at me in shock 😳 like are you kidding me? We just got married! He felt disappointed and heartbroken in those moments. I would get sad seeing him that way. I did a lot of self talk in those first few weeks. I quickly learned that you don’t say I DO to him and marriage once and that’s it. You continuously have to say I DO to this person everyday of your life. When I did my self talk I would ask myself, do you think you made a mistake choosing him? The answer would be NO there’s no one else I would rather be with, that I have always been one hundred percent sure of.
The next question would be, is the situation really that bad that you’re feeling this way or is this just your ego/pride acting up? Then in that moment I choose him over again and I recommit to doing better to create a peaceful and happy home. You have to choose your spouse and choose to be married every very often for you to remain focused on sustaining a happy home. I’m glad to say that the days of questioning my decision to get married is in the past now. I have been known to resist Change. Generally I don’t do well with change at all. So I believe part of our issues at the beginning of our marriage was me resisting change, I panicked.
No winner no loser in arguments
I dare to say the main reason arguments get drown out in marriage is because one or both partners are trying to win the argument. One or both don’t want to back down. For men it’s usually because of their egos. But some women like me struggle with ego too, but sometimes it’s just pettiness on our part. I’ve realized that shouldn’t be.
We are not in a competition against each other and shouldn’t act like we are. We are partners. We are a team. A team who wins together and loses together. My husband would say that he’s the person that loves me the most in the whole world and the person that wants the best for me the most, so he can’t possibly have bad intentions when he says or does something. And I’m sure some husbands feel the same way. And if you look at it from that point of view, you wouldn’t reason badly phrased comments too deep. Sometimes people have the best intentions but their delivery may be poor.
We also want to remember that not all men understand how to approach certain things or phrase their words sometimes in a way that it is welcoming to the woman. I’ve accused my husband of that a few times, and he’s learning 😊
If there’s happiness in the home we both are happy. If there’s sadness we both suffer. It pays no one to let a grudge fester.
Learn to laugh over some things
These days I’m very chilled in my marriage. There’s hardly anything to make a fuss about. It’s been a lot of laughter and zero arguments for awhile. Not that we used to have a lot. Combine all the major arguments we have had since getting married I doubt it’s been more than five.
Now when I feel there is something to fuss about, I just ignore. It’s usually not that deep anyway some of the things we women make issue of. I have learned that I have to control the desire to debate everything. The desire to be seen as right when it really doesn’t matter. If you want to have a peaceful happy home you need to pick your battles because arguments sucks out the joy in the home. Don’t start one except the issue is important to you. Did he not flush the toilet properly? flush it. Did he not put his dirty clothes where they should be? Pick them up and put them where they should be, it takes less energy to do that than it takes to quarrel about it. Of course if it bothers you, you should tell him calmly later to put more efforts into doing things properly. But that moment you notice it, it may not be the best time to talk about it since you could speak from a place of anger or irritation.
So that’s it! I’ll continue to submit myself to more learning and improving as a wife and as a person in general. I’m happy to be married, life is a lot better with a companion. I’m especially happy to be married to the man I am married to. I’ll say I DO to him every day of my life. Our relationship has been more beautiful than anything I ever dreamed of about marriage. And we’re only just starting! 😊
Are you recently married? What would you say you have learned so far? Was adjusting difficult for you? Have you been married for some years? Please share some wisdom with us! How was it like for you especially at the beginning of the marriage? What challenges did you face and how did you deal with them? I can’t wait to read from you! If you’re yet to be married let us know what your biggest take away is from this article.