MemberWhat were the highlights / low points / learning curves that happened during your 1st year of marriage? I dated my current husband 10 years before we got married and for the most part not much has changed except for daily living together. We’ve been married since Sept ’15. Any advice?
MemberWe have had a rough go job-wise in our first year. I was adapting to a new job and he lost his job in April and still hasn’t found a new one. It has added unnecessary stress onto us unfortunately. Also learning to compromise has been something I’m learning as I go because I am stubborn as hell most days. Learning to make choices with another person in mind hasn’t necessarily been the easiest thing for me!
Overall though it’s been pretty good. I’m happy with how things are…and find it so hard to believe that we are quickly approaching 1 year!
Memberljm308: I can relate to being stubborn. I feel bad because I think my husband cares more about making me happy than himself. While we were dating we went through a lot of job changes (on my end). A year before we got engaged I actually got fired from a new boss who didn’t like me. I worked there 3 years before that. I was so upset by it emotionally but looking back I’m so happy it happened because I would’ve never started a new career path, had more flexible hours, and be making more/same amount of money if it wasn’t for that.we probably would’ve never gotten engaged/married either because I had no time with my old job. He will find a new job that he likes better than the last. Trust me everything happens for a reason.
giaf1.
MemberWe lived together before marriage, but I’d say we *still* had to adjust to our different levels of what is “clean.” We still argue sometimes about chores and have had to compromise on how often and how things are done. Plus merging finances was rough. We did Dave Ramsey’s financial peace class though and it helped SO much
MemberWe’ll be married 1 year in September and I still haven’t haven’t changed my name or merged our finances. We have one shared checking account since we got engaged with wedding gift money. He pays utility bills, so at some point I’ll have to stop postponing making this changes. The merging finances is hard especially since he has a steady job and I am commission based.
MemberI think this depends on your situation. We have lived together almost since we started dating (I think it was 2 months before he was officially on my lease.) We will not be combining bank accounts because we have a system that works for us and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I really don’t think anything will change after we legally marry except my last name.
MemberI’ll be totally honest with you even though my experience is, I’m sure, not what other people relate to:
One issue we had early on was the level of work I was doing around the house. My job (teaching) has fewer specified hours but lots of work during evenings and weekends. He works longer hours but doesn’t bring work home. I was doing 100% of the cooking and most of the cleaning at first until I broke down and just couldn’t do it anymore a few months in. I was so sad and overwhelmed and had never considered asking him for more help. We have similar expectations of cleanliness, but he just didn’t realize how much time I was putting in. He’d never lived with someone before – he went from his grandmother’s (who was a homemaker) to a fraternity (with a housekeeper) to our house – so he had no idea that keeping a clean house meant a regular hour of tidying up/cleaning on top of cooking all our meals from scratch. He stepped up his cleaning game. He now does all the floors, all the laundry and cleans the kitchen – cleans up after my cooking, plus dishes and whatnot.
My second obstacle, which is 100% a personal issue, is the level of vulnerability in a marriage. I have a hard time expressing myself, like I’m a bit reserved emotionally with everyone, and I always have to remind myself that he’s really in it for the long haul and it’s okay to be honest and vulnerable.
I’ve had to adjust the way I deal with conflict. I used to run away and avoid it at all costs, but now, though it sucked at first, we are so good at sitting down and explaining our viewpoints before coming to a good solution for both of us. This is tied to the vulnerability thing mentioned above.
We never fight about money and that’s my #1 piece of advice for newlyweds. Be sure you agree on how your money is managed. Money is the primary reason given for divorces in this country and many people come from families who don’t talk about money practices because they fear it’s impolite. Fuck that! Talk about money! Kill the awkwardness that exists surrounding financial matters.
Memberlittlehatjones: with the bank account / credit card I feel the same way, don’t fix it if it’s not broken. I think maybe we’ll wait until we have a house / kids and need to share more expenses but even then, the expenses can come out of our 1 shared account. For the name change, I think for health/medical and traveling purposes it makes sense, but wondering if I should just wait til we have kids to change my name. Honestly I thought I’d change the name right away because I’m old fashioned but I didn’t realized what a headache/process it would be. Our social secur. Office is notorious for being horrible in our area. But I guess it has to get done eventually maybe better late than never
Memberfourfrenchfries: I also do most of the cleaning/cooking/food shopping. He came from his moms house before we got married so she did mostly everything even though he helped out with laundry. When we first got married, I did his laundry while he was at work and he would complain about how I folded his clothes + it drove me nuts. Now he’s just happy someone does his laundry for him so it’s a getting used to something process.
We communicate really well but about more serious matters, I also have a hard way of talking about certain things so ill bring things up in a roundabout way and sometimes get frustrated he can’t read my signals and act childish and just run away from the situation. I think I’m just scared of his reaction or opinion being different than mine. When it comes to when we will have kids I think our opinion differs and bringing that topic up scares me. I don’t want him to resent me for having kids earlier than we wanted to. I’m 29 so I’m not young or quite old yet but the 1st year of marriage flies by and I don’t want to start when he realizes oh shit maybe it’s time because now we’re 35 and I never wanted to talk about it before.
On money I think having seperate credit cards and accounts has helped us not fight about money/spending but I think at some point we'”l have to merge finances more so he doesn’t feel like it’s all on him.
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