Adjusting to Marriage

There are many new adjustments that couples go through when they are first married. I have compiled a list of a few that newlyweds may go through within their first month of marriage.

First, living with each other. Couples often spend the majority of their time together through their engagement, however this is completely different than living with your significant other. You have to go back to the age of two and share most everything with each other. You now share a bathroom, the blankets and sheets on a bed, food, money, and so much more. 

You adjust to how the other person lives. While you live together you lay everything all out on the table. You learn how they clean how they do their laundry. You learn and adjust to their habits good or bad. You see how they load the dishwasher, and you see they fold clothes the right way or not. Husbands get to see how much hair a hairbrush can really hold, and wives get to see how often boys really leave the toilet seat up.

As a newlywed couple you both have to learn how to care for someone other than yourself. You learn to put their needs first when necessary. You learn to cook and clean for each other no matter who made the mess or who wore the clothes. 

As a couple you must decide what the dynamic is going to be between your friends. Will your wife still get to go out with her guy best friend for lunch every Thursday? Will your husband still go get breakfast with his work lady friend before work? It’s up to you to decide. 

You learn to adjust together to new living arrangements. Whether you are simply moving across town to married apartments, or you are moving completely to a new state to start your eternity.

Usually newlywed couples have to adjust to having less time to see each other. Now that you are married it is possible that you are working full time, or you may begin to attend school full time and work part time. You have to adjust to not having as much free time spent together as you would like or how much you used to have.

Married couples have to earn to make decisions together. You will already have a little practice with making decisions because of wedding planning. In the first month of marriage you should be making some small and big decisions together. Soon enough you will be making really big life decisions together and practicing making small decisions together will help you make big decisions much easier.

As a couple you get to decide what family traditions and habits you want to uphold. Your wives family may have a tradition of opening a present on Christmas eve, which may completely foreign and unheard of to you. While your husband’s family may watch movies and eat popcorn every single night before bed. You get to decide what you keep and what you throw out.

Dating is essential to keep a strong relationship and build a strong marriage. You have to adjust to still going out on dates even though you spend your limited free time together anyways. Continuing to date will help you get to know each other better still, and to maybe take a bit of a break from “at home dates”. Making a plan will help immensely with creating a pattern of dating in your marriage. Maybe you’ve budgeted to have $30 dollars a month for dates, whatever works best for you. 

An extremely important thing to establish in a marriage is budgeting. You have to decide where your money will be spent and how much of it will be spent on what. 

In the end it all comes down to what you and your spouse decide, but I think that the first month comes with a lot of decisions that might determine what a lot of your marriage will be like.