I can NOT believe that it has been a little over a year of wedded bliss! We have been married for 13 months, 393 days and 9,216 hours.
Communication
Cliché right? Everybody says that the key to a happy marriage is communication. What they forget to mention is that it’s more so about how you communicate vs just saying what you need/what to say. Lesson learned {and still a work in progress}, the way that I communicate and what I think that I am trying to say does not always roll off my tongue in the perfectly in tact way as intended. The key to a happy marriage is figuring out how your spouse understands information.
Pinterest is the Devil
I created an entire board and pinned ALL of the things that I wanted to do in the first year. Date night ideas, meal prep recipes {because I convinced myself that it would be romantic to cook together once a week}, 52 ways to say “I Love You” and the list goes on and on. I did 1.5 of those things in the first year. I guess we’ve got a lifetime to go.
Pick Up The Phone
Yes, you should talk to your spouse every once in a while. But this lesson is more so about the extended family. Our families live in different states than us. So we aren’t doing Sunday dinner with the in-laws and I’m not planning shopping trips with my sister-in-love. I struggled with this part of my new normal because I longed to be an active contributor to my new family and immediately begin to build our relationships. Lesson learned, nothing beats just picking up the phone and checking in on the fam.
Go To Bed Angry
We tried to avoid this one. It seemed like the right thing to do. But the truth of the matter is that sometimes you are just entirely too exhausted to work it out and find a solution before bedtime. So just go to bed and try again in the morning.
Spice It Up!
There’s a lot of routine in marriage. Wake up. Go to Work. Come Home. “How was your day?” Eat Dinner. Watch a tv show. Go to bed. Repeat. Every once in a while do something different. Live on the edge. I’m not talking about a weekly date night, that’s a part of the routine. I’m talking about, when the hubs goes out-of-town, I eat junk food and candy on the floor for dinner!!
Most importantly {this is a BONUS lesson}, I’ve learned to balance individuality with togetherness. It is so very important that you remain true to who you are without feeling guilty and that you hold sacred the time that you are together.