One newlywed from another.
It has been just about seven months since I entered marital bliss, and although I am no where near to being a pro at marriage or being a wife , I know plenty of people getting married this year and though I have not been at this for a while, I have this need to impart some of the things that I have learned and still am learning!
I would consider myself a young bride, less than a month after I left my teenage years, Travis and I got engaged , and then six months into my 20s I was a married woman. I had this whole picture of what kind of wife I was going to be, and although I knew that my marriage would not be perfect by any means , I had this picture in my mind , it was a pretty picture. I was going to be super organized, an immaculate housewife , positive, cute and adorable all of the time . After our honeymoon and when I started summer school, I was hit with the fact that picture was not reality , and I would not have wanted it to be, to be honest the picture I had of myself and of my marriage was well, cookie cutter and a little boring ! Now , I do not mean to say that being those things are bad, of course I desire to be a great wife, of course I desire to be a wise spender of my time, and always full of positive things , I pray for those traits in my life . However , I am not perfect and Travis does not want me to be, I learned that my husband would much rather spend quality time with him before the house is spotless, he would much rather have a confidant me than a perfectly made up me ! Travis loves it when I am spontaneous in the kitchen , and he loves watching my creativity , he prefers seeing this side of me before seeing the overly organized and anal to our menu plan. Travis loves me and the reality of me is that I am never perfect, not always organized , and dishes will be in the sink .
No matter how wonderful you fiancé is , I promise you that there will be days where you will want to strangle him, should you ? Never ! But will you momentarily think about it ? Yes. Your husbands will do something that will hurt your feelings, he'll be late for dinner ( or tell you last minute to cancel), or he may not text or call you all day long when you needed him, he may not be doing anything wrong but he will make you mad. When that happens, you need to take a take back and deep breath. Sometimes when I have gotten upset because I felt ignored and I lash out at my husband , I come to find out that he is simply working very hard and because he is responsible he wants to be an example he does not like to use his phone for personal reason at work . Wow, it is in those moments that I feel like a complete selfish idiot . In most of these cases where I feel hurt , it's because I am being totally selfish and I am blinded by my own emotions to think clearly.
And ladies , you will fight, you will be seething , you'll cry a ridiculous amount of anger tears , but after that fight and you've made up, you will have learned so much about this man you've married , and it will be awesome . I promise .
A word from someone who knows, don't make too many set in stone plans. Because if you haven't learned already from your own walk, God has other plans that usually do coerce with yours. I did not plan to spend the first year of newlywed bliss growing a human being, I also did not plan moving to a different country either. As incredible as these blessings are , I had a really difficult time with them at first because I was still clutching on to the things that I had planned.
And lastly, love on your husbands, never hold back a smile, don't hesitate to snuggle up into his arms, listen when he talks ( I'm not talking about the important stuff he has to tell you, but listen to the normal stuff ) and let him love on you ! If he wants to play with your hair ( in my case Travis likes to knot it ) if he wants to spoil you, don't tell him not to waste money on you , if he tells you that you are beautiful , believe him. Your marriage will be sweeter because of it .
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
- Genesis 2:18
