Adjusting to Marriage!

As you can tell by the heading we talked about the adjustments we have to make when we get married. Since I'm newly married I have defiantly seen how many adjustments you really do have to make. Don't get me wrong marriage is great! I love my husband dearly and I'm so grateful I'm married, but it is an adjustment. Lets look at the first month of marriage. Adjustments: sharing a bed, food, priorities, temperature in the home, chores-household, habits, schedule, fiances, and one that is huge is making decisions. Its not only you now that you need to think about when making decisions. When you make a decision it affects two people. One thing I found super important about making decisions is communication. To be honest, when I first got married, I was horrible at communicating! It wasn't that I didn't want to talk. Some things I didn't want to make a decision because I didn't want to make the wrong one so I said I didn't care or it doesn't matter. But it reality, it does! I felt like everything will figure it on its own. This does not work! I realized as I communicate with my husband we made decisions together. Our relationship became stronger. We also talked about adjustments within the first year. Some of them were: traditions, medical issues, and extended family. We all want to start traditions with our own families. What are they going to be? Are you going to do things that your family does or are you going to do some things his family does? Where are you going to go for holidays? These are questions I feel might come up as your starting your family. It's just something you can be open and honest about with your husband. It's important for you to talk to your spouse before hand about traditions. As you do this when holidays come up you know what traditions you are going to do and there will be less contention in the home. I think one of the biggest adjustments we talked about is when you decide to have a baby.

Something I thought was interesting was in the average American marriage, marital satisfaction, is high until shortly after the birth of the first child, goes down significantly after the birth of each child, then levels out before improving as the children leave home. I don't believe it's because they aren't excited about the baby. My teacher gave us some reasons this could be happening. There is a lot of stress when it comes to having a baby, the work load goes up for both parents, and guys don't believe that their wives agree with them as they did before, even though that is usually not true. We we as women need to make sure we involve our husbands during pregnancy and after. How do we do that? These are some of my thoughts on it: I learned how important it is to engage your husband. It is important for them to feel involved. I think if they don't feel involved there could definitely be problems. One thing women can do is to make sure their husbands are at each doctor’s appointment. Make sure to let your husband feel the kicking of the baby. Obviously, moms can feel that all the time. If the dad gets to feel it he will feel already a connection with the baby. When the baby is born, let the husband take care of him/her. I know moms are super protective, but as the dad changes the diaper, gives the baby a bath, or holds the baby the dad can feel more wanted. During pregnancy and after having the baby moms should be open with the dad. Make sure you talk to him. Let him know how the baby was that day. While you are pregnant tell him what’s going on. Tell your husband how you feel. The baby can take a lot of your time, but your husband needs to know what’s going on. Lastly, go on dates! I think a lot of couples forget about this. I bet it’s scary at first to leave the baby with your mom or a good friend, but it will be good for the relationship. The marriage can grow and become stronger as they were before the baby came.