As all you lovelies know after reading my about me (incase you didn't I will recap now) I am married. I have been married since July of 2012 which puts it at around 2 years 9 months but who is counting! Anywho, those first few months definitely taught me a lot about myself, my husband, and marriage. You see I had this image in my head about what marriage was supposed to be like and the brings me to my first lesson:
1. Don't let the image you have of marriage hold you back from what marriage can actually be!
In my head, I had this image of what my marriage was supposed to look like. Now I had been with my husband for two and a half years before I married him, and had been living with him for over a year before we said I do and because of this I thought I knew him pretty well. Hence why I thought I knew what our marriage would look like. Well ladies and gents the image in my head and what played out in my life had some similarities but mostly differences.
For example: I definitely thought that we would feel older, less immature, and that for some reason we would receive more respect now that we were married. Well I definitely didn't feel any older, we still act silly and immature (which is actually something I LOVE and am glad didn't change), but we in no uncertain terms did not receive more respect now that we were a married couple. If anything, I got the run around for being so young and getting married. That brings me to my next point:
2. Stop trying to fit into the world's idea of what your marriage should be!
I had just turned 19 and my husband was turning 21 soon after our wedding, and while we had a lot of support on the issue we got a lot more hate because of our decision. I wouldn't call us religious by any means so that wasn't an influencing factor on our decision, like I said above we had been living together for over a year before getting married. We made the decision to get married when we did because we knew we loved each other and were committed to staying together and supporting each other no matter our age or situation. We had already molded our life into being together and were very happy with how our imperfect relationship was. We were also in college and living with family to be able to focus on our education so what money we did make from our 35+ hour a week jobs was pretty much surplus, we had enough to make a very nice wedding (still under $10,000 and yes there will be a series on how I did our beautiful wedding for that price) so we didn't find it necessary to wait until we had our own place and no money to provide a wedding. My long and exaggerated point here is: no one knows your circumstances better than you and your partner, and it isn't anyone else's decision! If you and your partner love each other enough to commit to working out your issues for the rest of your lives (because marriage and life will always have issues) then you should make the lifetime commitment whether it be marriage, or vows written on a post-it like Meredith and Derek of Grey's Anatomy. Don't let the world into your commitment to your partner.
3. Be open to disagreements
My husband and I were always the type to have little spats and then five minutes later be laughing about them, but we could also get into some mean arguments. Sometimes I felt myself saying "we are married now we can't argue like this" but I learned that no matter what we were going to argue we are in some ways complete opposites of each other. I also learned that it was okay, we always came to a compromise no matter how drawn out the argument was. I also found that we both learned from those arguments and ultimately became better and better partners together. Whether your the type to argue only on occasion or your like us and spat all the time, as long as your both committed to working out your problems arguments are just a natural and normal part of interacting with each other and should teach you about yourself and your partner.
4. Always be willing to listen
This can be a hard one in those early times especially after the emotional low you get when the hype and excitement from the wedding dies down you start looking for the next thing to be excited about or the next goal you wish to accomplish. I find that I am the talker of the mix and my husband is happy in his place of listener (even though he doesn't listen well sometimes) but I had a sense that sometimes my goals and focus wasn't always shared by my husband and this led to problems in other areas. It is easy to loose sight of the other person when you are so passionate about something going on in your own personal life but part of marriage is listening to your partner about their goals, and their concerns. When you make an effort to listen to your spouse and show interest in their lives not only will they return the favor but you will feel the benefits in your own life as well.
5. Constantly learn about your partner
It is easy after a few years of being together to feel like you know everything about your spouse but that certainly isn't the case! There is no way you have heard every childhood story, or that their likes and dislikes haven't changed over the years. His favorite candy might have been reeses but then he tried the new airheads and those are his favorite now. Or maybe her favorite store used to be JC Penney but they lost a bunch of their lines and she likes Sears now! My point is, when you make a conscious effort to still learn about your spouse you not only grow to love their person more but they will also feel wanted and loved by you still getting to know them after all of these years. When you use what you learn on a daily basis you are continuing to build the love and trust necessary for a healthy and long marriage.
Oh and the picture seen above? That is my husband and I dancing during our reception, the picture was blurry but I honestly think that it looks better that way and captured such a happy moment (we took dance lessons for our wedding) :)
