Your first year of marriage? Oh yeah, super easy — and no one has conflicts, so you’re good. All jokes aside, while your first year of marriage is unlikely to be all sunshine and rainbows, there’s no reason it has to be fraught with conflict, either.
While everyone’s first year is going to be different, there are several ways you can make your transition into married life the smoothest it can possibly be. Putting on your exciting new men’s wedding band is the start of a long era, and there’s plenty of work still to be done. Read on for helpful tips on making the most of your first year of marriage.
Set Expectations
Oftentimes, our biggest conflicts come from unsaid expectations. If you hold someone to the standard of an expectation they never explicitly agreed to, that’s only a recipe for disaster — especially in a marriage.
You want to start out by being as deliberate and precise in your expectations as possible. For the external processors in the room, deliberately speaking your expectations may help you determine whether they’re reasonable. Either way, you have to say these things out loud so you can calibrate what you both want and need from each other.
Start Small
You’re not going to get everything dialed in during your first month of marriage. You won’t get it all in your first year, even. That’s perfectly okay. You want to start from the bottom up. Consider the smallest thing you can do to improve your marriage, and then do that. Putting away the dishes promptly won’t make or break your marriage (probably), but it’s a small and deliberate good thing to do. From there, find the next-smallest thing, rinse and repeat.
Say Thank You
If you take nothing else from this, remember to say thank you, even for small and seemingly inconsequential things. This is going to ingrain good habits and make everyone involved feel appreciated, even in the smallest of things.
Arguments Aren’t Inherently Bad
We get so uncomfortable with arguments often, but it’s mostly because we don’t know how to argue well. In fairness, arguing well is certainly a skill and one that needs to be cultivated. It’s going to take time, but the only way to improve is to continue doing it. So, don’t be afraid of arguments. In fact, they’re healthy and can allow you to get to the root of problems you’re having. If you bottle it up, you will never solve the problem at hand.
Don’t Forget Romance
You don’t have to go to Michelin Star restaurants each weekend. Small gestures are plenty — most of the time. Still, you want to deliberately do things for each other to keep that spark.
You’re not in the early stages of dating anymore, so everything isn’t as new and shiny as it was. You still want to capture that spark and the effort that you put in back then. It’s important to show that spark, whether it’s grand gestures or practical gifts, like getting matching silicone rings for when you work out together.
You Don’t Have to Do Everything Together
You are still individuals. Even though you now exist as a unit in a way you didn’t before, it’s incredibly important to have time to do your own thing. This is going to be especially useful to remember if one of you is an introvert and the other is an extrovert. She wants to spend a quiet night in — reading — and you desperately need to talk with a human being before you’re bored to death? You can both do your own thing and be perfectly happy. It will be okay!
Accept That It’s Not Always Easy
You might have had stars in your eyes at one point, but now the reality has set in and the laundry still needs to be done. That’s just a part of the process; accepting that reality is quite important.
You may hit a patch of post-wedding blues, making the first few months of marriage tough. You may have a family tragedy or a job loss. There are a million things that can come up, so you have to know it won’t always be easy and lean on each other. If you can accept this reality and communicate well with each other, you can get through whatever life throws at you.
Keep Trying
Yes, this does sound like an oversimplification. However, that’s really all there is to it. You’re not going to get everything right on the first try, and that’s okay. As long as you know how to have conflict well and resolve your problems efficiently, you’re good.
Your first year of marriage will probably be full of highs and lows. You’re now intertwining your life with another person and taking on their intricacies and wants. It’s going to take time, but you now have your person by your side, and you’ll do it together. We wish you a beautiful and happy marriage!