What I wish I would have known before getting married

 

Andy and I got married on the 21st January 2023. It was a wonderful day, finally months of stress had been worth it, we were married! 

Enter marriage, or should I say enter months of wondering 'is this what married life is like?'. Do not get me wrong, I love being married to Andy, the first year had some incredible moments and I was so thankful to have him in my life, as my husband. But what shocked me, was how much preparation I thought I had done, to only realise I had overlooked so many important things!

So here are four things I wish I would have known before saying 'I do':

1. I wish I would have realised how selfish I was

When you're dating or engaged it's so easy to love the person whilst still having independence and have certain things your way, however once you're married it feels like every decision is one you need to make together. A light-hearted example is when I realised that I wanted to pick every film we watched, every film my husband recommended, I said 'no' with pretty much no consideration. Months went by and it didn't even occur to me how selfish that was! I started to say 'yes' to some of his film recommendations (not all might I add, we're yet to watch Spider Man across the Spider verse after I foolishly agreed to watch the first film)... As I started to be more open to doing things he wanted to do, the more I noticed that he seemed more relaxed with me and more open to share other things he had thought of. 

2. It's 100/100, not 50/50

When we got married we created a cleaning rota, we divided the chores equally between us and thought that would work. But then came along extra commitments, my husbands commute to work taking longer than mine, my health issues which slowed me down at times around the house etc. It's not about doing your 50% and expecting the other person to do their 50%. It's about giving 100%, even if that 100% isn't getting every chore done you said you would, it's about showing your spouse that you want to give 100% into your marriage because you love them. For some couples it might mean you spend more time at the office, and your spouse spends more time at home, one spouse might earn more than the other and that's okay. It's not about trying to prove anything, it's about loving each other and serving one another. I'm learning to not "check out" when I think I've done "my share", but instead continually be checking in and making Andy know how much I love him.

3. It's not going to work out exactly as you planned

This can look different for every couple, maybe you don't have the careers you thought you might have, or the kids you thought you might have. I planned my life out years ahead of where I currently was and it just left me feeling discontent and constantly wanting more. Instead what I would encourage you to do is accept that your marriage is going to look different to your friends or your parents and that it's about enjoying the journey. Who knows, maybe if you stop planning so much a lovely unexpected surprise will happen that you could have never imagined. 

4. Men and women are more different than I thought

I grew up with two sisters, most of my friends in school were girls. I had thought because I like rock music, I play the drums, I'm not a fan of make up etc I'd easily live alongside a man without any problem! How wrong was I...Andy and I are so different in so many ways. I immediately know what I want and am happy talking about it for hours, Andy needs time to process and thinks before he speaks, Andy is an introvert, I'm an extrovert. It's not just the fact that we're different people, our brains and our body's are wired differently, so therefore our approach to life will be different. I'm still getting my head around these differences! But I'm thankful for these differences as it makes life a little more interesting and our differences enable us to accomplish so much more. 

Book recommendation: Andy and I have really enjoyed reading Love & Respect by Dr Emerson Eggerichs. If you're newly married or want to work on loving and respecting your spouse more I'd recommend giving it a try.

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