Hey, Newlywed!  Oh. My. Goodness. You’re married!  If you are like me, you felt like this would never happen.  But it did!

First things first: I’m writing to you from the perspective of a woman–but feel free to read this if you’re a man.

photo by Bethany Moore, Breakthrough Images

I’m writing with the idea that you just married the man of your prayers with whom you did not cohabitate before you tied that special knot.  I have no other experience but this, so I don’t have expertise in newlywededness that doesn’t fit this category.

I’m writing from the perspective of being married for just over four years.  Our wedding day was am amazing day and I treasure the memories from the day.

I guess this post sort of means that maybe, just maybe, I’m not a newlywed anymore.  When did this happen?  When did I become not newlywed anymore?  That’s kind of like asking when your puppy grew up.  It just happened.  Every day.  And then it just was.  Non-newlywedness sneaked in and became a thing without your permission.

For the record, I don’t think I am an oldlywed.  I just have a little under my belt, now.  I’ll claim newlywededness with or without your permission. Thankyouverymuch.

So, let’s talk a bit about being a newlywed, shall we?

Alright?

Good.

Let’s go.

My first piece of advice is to get rid of a word.  The d-word.  Divorce should NOT be an option.  You promised to be committed to this guy and this relationship whether things are going splendidly or terribly.  Leaving is not an option.  A break from this commitment cannot–CANNOT–be an option for either of you.

If you didn’t decide, going into this adventure, that divorce shouldn’t be an option, decide now.  It’s not too late.  If divorce is an option, one or both of you will jump ship and you both will fail at being married.

Honeymoon pic on a beach in Greece

So, if you just got home from your honeymoon, you should expect to get to work.  Maybe you’ve heard people say that marriage takes “work.”  You’re probably thinking about all of the work you did as an engaged couple–planning a wedding–or when you were dating–as you got to know each other or went through all that junk.

That previous work definitely counts.  Prepare for things to change, though.

I remember–just a month or so after I moved and The Hunk and I began to live together in marriage–turning to Seth and crying a little bit.  I felt like I was grasping to hold tight to the giddy honeymoon excitement that I’d experienced.  I remember saying to my sparkling new husband, “I feel like our love is already changing!”  He felt it, too.

And it did.  The change wasn’t a bad change, but it was unexpected.  I imagine the change is different for every couple, since people are always different and one couple is never identical to another.  And I imagine you can expect this change to happen–although I can’t promise it will occur as quickly as ours did, as I moved from a long distance and experienced more changes in my life than I could ever have imagined.

This love change was a sign that our love was deepening and strengthening.  Our roots were digging into the soil.  We were just starting to do life together and this was a necessary and natural change.

I hope you’ve also heard that money is usually the cause of the d-word-we’re-no-longer-using.  Well, that’s only half true.  Terrible teamwork during money crisis can be the beginning of the end if a husband and wife do not work together to solve the problem.  Work together to be proactive about your spending.  There will likely be a spending surge after you say “I do,” as you settle into life together.  Set up your budget–and while you’re at it, be sure to follow Dave Ramsey’s model for telling your money where it goes so that your money doesn’t tell you where you can’t go.  As he says, live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later!

If you didn’t get premarital counseling (we did), get newlywed counseling.  Before there’s a problem, be sure you have the tools to fix inevitable pot holes that appear along the way in your marriage.  I help The Hunk when he provides pre-marital counseling; we tend to spend a lot of time helping equip these lovebirds with skills to work through their problems.  I am unbelievably honored to be a part of this process because, as we grow up, we often don’t learn these methods.  I know I didn’t.  But, seriously, it’s not too late to get these tools and you’ll thank yourself later.  Pot holes are inevitable.

Okay.  I know this is hard to believe.  Well, probably hard to believe.  But you’re probably not going to feel like loving this splendid guy sometime.  At least once.  At least a thousand times.  I mean, unless he’s actually Jesus the Christ, he’s imperfect.  I have a few of my own favorite lines that I try to keep at the front of my mind when The Hunk moves my cheese or leaves coffee grinds all over the counter.

• You’re on the same team.  I hope Seth knows that I’m not out to get him.  So, in return, I have to–just have to–remember that he doesn’t ever mean to come against me or hurt me.  If we disagree about how to go about taking care of the car I totaled on the way to work, we both have to problem-solve with this idea at the center of our process.  My husband has a similar line that he uses: Fight together–not against one another.  He fights with me–not against me.  Because we’re on the same team.
• Outdo one another in love.  Love isn’t a competition, of course, but I keep this in mind when I realize that I’m keeping track or adding up “points” in my head.  It doesn’t matter if Seth has done less than me when it comes to making dinner or cleaning up afterwards.  Always. Always. Always, I am aiming to love him more than he loves me.  And goshdangit if he isn’t awesome at loving me!?
• It’s not personal.  When Seth comes home and is super quiet while I go off about an awful day at work or a super important-to-me issue, I can sometimes feel ignored.  And my job is basically to be ignored all day, so I can get pretty peeved if my man isn’t joining me in a pretend tirade against Johnny Cuss-me-out or Sally Alpha-female.  But, if I remember this line, I realize that I need to stop my self-absorbed rant and see what’s going on with him.  Without fail, I realize that I’ve literally just dumped my problems on him; his job is basically to be dumped on all day.  So, it’s not personal.
• Give the same grace you would like.  This is actually one I stole from Seth.  When I think about the amount of grace Jesus gives me daily and, well, hourly and … second-ly, I realize that I am really no one to stand on a high horse and expect perfection in any area of life since I cannot ever get life perfect.  This is one reason Jesus created marriage–for us to realize the extent to which we are forgiven and to practice that same difficult forgiveness allthegoshdarntime.  Seriously.
• Love each other, even if you don’t feel like it.  This adage is my mother-in-law’s.  Other than experience, I don’t know where she heard it.  But I didn’t understand it for a while.  And, if you’re fresh off the reception dance floor, you may not get this for a while.  But just get real tired and see how much energy you feel like expending on this worky worky love.  You won’t feel like running that errand he requests or responding to his obvious and suggestive touch.  You just won’t.  And every tired tissue of your body will encourage you to close your eyes and heart off from your man.  When you do this, it’s the same as him plugging in headphones and blasting music in his ears after you ask for help carrying in the groceries or when you need to be heard.

Alright, you newlywed, you.  I love talking about marriage and could continue for a long freakin’ time.  So, I’ll leave you with a list of awesome resources that I’m pretty sure have saved me a bunch of grey hairs and prevented all possible ulcers.

1. By far, the most valued resource from which I’ve gleaned so far is Love and Respect.  This book breaks down the foundational relationship issues between men and women and helped me understand what respect REALLY means to me–not the chauvinistic definition I thought was truth before.  Check out their sister ministry Love and Respect NOW.  Joy seriously cracks me up.  I want to be her bff.
2. Seth and I use the book and accompanying workbooks for Saving Your Marriage Before it Starts.  If you go through the workbooks and read the book, you are forced to talk about the difficult things–before they startle you when they pop up suddenly and without warning.  We went through these on our own before we got married–well, we didn’t quite finish before we got married.

There are tons of resources out there, but none of these resources are any good if you don’t know Jesus as your personal savior.  I can’t help but be frank when I say this.  Without Jesus, marriages fall apart since marriage is supposed to represent Jesus’ love for the Church: unconditional and eternal.

So, please, enjoy marriage.  Always try to get better at being married–loving your husband and working with him to serve Jesus.  It really can be splendid despite the hard times–like when your boss unfairly and unrelentingly reams you out or you have your very first real car wreck or when money just doesn’t seem to be stretching or when your wisdom teeth have to be cut out or when you need someone to help you grade papers or shoot a wedding.  In short, it’s a roller coaster, for sure.

Love,