Tying the Knot

This week I wanted to talk about marriage- the challenges newly married couples might have, different things that can affect their marriage, and precautions they can take during their engagement period to have a successful marriage. 

One thing that I've noticed with engaged couples is that they plan a wedding, not a marriage. When a couple gets engaged, they shouldn't just focus on the wedding their going to have, but the marriage they're going to have after the wedding! Both people are going to have to make adjustments and accommodations to make a relationship that will work for the rest of their lives. Here are some those adjustments and accommodations:

• Sharing everything!
• After getting married, everything should be shared between the couple. These are the most important things:
• Time. Sacrifice is inevitable in a relationship, especially the sacrifice of time. For the most part, married couples are on a shared schedule. One person might have to sacrifice some of their time to accommodate an activity or event their spouse has to go to. 
• Responsibilities. One person in the relationship can't carry the weight of all the responsibilities. Just because the husband is working and the wife stays at home (or vice versa) doesn't mean they are strictly confined to those responsibilities. They should be able to clean up after themselves instead of one person doing all of the cleaning, or if the person who stays at home had a bad day, the other person should be willing to cook dinner that night. There's also the shared responsibility of keeping each other accountable and honest. 
• Plans. This one is basically the same as time. Dates still need to be happening, and for the most part, where one spouse goes the other should follow. 
• Finances. I cannot stress this enough! Married couples NEED to share finances and they NEED to communicate about the things that they are buying. Having your own separate bank accounts could lead to problems in the marriage because it leaves room for dishonesty and a lack of trust.  
• Becoming their own family unit. 
• The boundaries set during a couple's engagement can heavily influence and impact the new "family unit". The families which each person in the relationship originated from should no longer be the family they give their time and attention to. I'll talk more about the impact of setting boundaries later in this post. 
• The basic stuff 
• Then there are the obvious adjustments: Sharing a bed, potentially moving to another city or state, when and what you like to eat, deciding if you're going to bed together (at the same time) or separately (different times), etc... 

So what can engaged couples do to prepare themselves for married life together? Here's what I think:

• Have serious discussions about what each person expects and wants from the marriage. This includes talking about sexual intimacy, when you're going to start having children, who's going to take certain responsibilities (like cooking dinner or cleaning the house), and how each others careers might impact the relationship. 
• Start setting boundaries around your relationship. A marriage can't thrive and survive if it's constantly being intruded upon by other family members and friends. You should each be the person you go to talk about your problems, especially the problems that might be happening in your marriage. The husband shouldn't turn to his buddies or his mom, just like the wife shouldn't turn to her friends or parents. There are certain things that your friends and family shouldn't be a part of, and that's the intimate, personal parts of your relationship. With that being said, if there are serious problems between the husband and wife, I would recommend seeing a marriage therapist, that way family members and friends won't have to get involved. 
• If the time and resources are available, take classes or read books about how to have a successful marriage and start working on the skills that can benefit the relationship.