It's Wednesday, the day that we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and you all either comment, or write your own Wifey Wednesday post and then come back here and link up in the Mcklinky below!
I've been reading a bunch of the Wifey Wednesday posts, and the links provided by many of you, and I see that many of my readers are early in their marriages. They're new brides, some of whom have babies. But marriage is something they're still getting adjusted to.
And so I thought I'd write a post now on what I wish I had known back when I was a new bride.
I wish I had known that sex does get better. You have decades to practice. Spend more time laughing about it and less time stressing about it.
I wish I had known that the fights that we have don't mean that the relationship is at stake, or that he doesn't love me anymore. It just means we're getting adjusted to each other, and we're learning how to compromise and communicate. Take the long term view. Things do get better!
I wish I had been told to be better friends. I wish we had started biking together back then (it's hard to take up biking now, when you're almost 40), or cross country skiing, or something active. I wish we had DONE more things together instead of simply watching TV. You need those activities where you have fun together and get active together. It makes the rest of your life so much healthier. So don't stop being friends.
I wish we had been more consistent with praying together. We're getting there now, but if we had been doing it first thing, I bet some of those early disagreements wouldn't have been so intense.
I wish I could have seen how fun it was to walk side by side, day after day, and become so much like each other it's scary. The idea of changing to become more like him would have, at the time, seemed like I was giving up my identity. But instead it's just a function of marriage, and it's a neat one. You change each other, and that's good. So don't stress about it!
I wish I had realized that even though those grey sweat pants he wore were the ugliest thing in the world, they meant something to him. It's fine to try to make your husband look snazzier, but don't do it all at once. And most of all, don't throw out everything you think is ugly and give it to Goodwill without telling him. Just a tip.
I wish I could have seen how great his mother was, even in those early days. I was so attached to my family when we were first married that it felt like an issue of loyalty to think that my family was better than his. In hindsight, we often have more fun with his extended family than we do with my extended family. We both have awesome mothers, and it's okay to love them both, even at the beginning.
I wish that I could have made more of an effort to figure out what made him tick, rather than focusing on what makes me tick, and how come he doesn't get it? I wish I could have stepped outside of my fragile psyche and saw that my husband was struggling, too--in school, in our relationship, in church. I wish I could have been a support to him, instead of insisting that he support me first and foremost. We were both so insecure when we married that we leaned on each other for too much, without being able to give. I wish I could have seen that in giving, you gain strength.
Most of all, I wish I could have seen that marriage isn't like dating. You don't have to be insecure anymore. He has promised to be there for life, and he means it. So trust him. If he's abrupt with you one day, blow it off. Don't make everything like that into a big issue. He's there. He adores you. He's going to stick with you. So grow together, don't always be second guessing him. You have decades to practice at this marriage thing, so laugh, talk, joke, and every now and then, have a water fight.
What do you wish you had known? Let me know in the comments, or leave a link in the Mcklinky!
 Labels: Christian, marriage, wifey wednesdays |
Stumble It!
I wish I had know that nagging only has the opposite effect. If I had accepted that you'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar, we could've had a much more peaceful beginning.