Whew! We've finally reached the point in our story where we're married! If you missed our actually wedding day, just click here to get caught up!
The first few months of marriage are infamous for being some of the hardest. It's hard to fully understand why until you're actually married and/or living together. You are two people coming from very different places in life with different families and your own way of doing things. Most of the things I do that are different from Nathan are things I just thought everyone did, so I did not expect conflict!
There were little things like the way we sort laundry (I had two categories, he had FIVE) and how to load the dishwasher (this is one we haven't technically resolved yet). Then there were bigger things like my crankiness in the mornings or Nathan's desire to have everything perfectly clean all of the time. Since we had never lived together before, I did not know his cleanliness would bleed over into my life, and he did not really know the extent to which I hate early morning wake up calls.
Overall, the first few months were not actually terribly difficult. We had no screaming matches (and still haven't, thank God!) or fights that seemed insurmountable. We did argue for the first time ever, which was very difficult for both of us, but each day we tried our best to keep in perspective how thankful we were to be married to each other.
One memory in particular sticks out to me - the first evening we spent away from each other. I had some friends over while he went out with some guys from our church. I am honestly not a very sentimental person, but I almost burst into tears when he drove away. I think I never wanted our marriage to become mundane, and I did not want to get used to spending time apart.
It was an overreaction on my part, but part of me wants to go back to that little 19-year-old girl who called her husband when he was halfway down the road in our neighborhood just to tell him she missed him already. I think it's so easy to let our marriage become just a regular thing - and it has to, up to a certain point. We cannot surprise each other every day of our lives, and there aren't always fireworks whenever we see each other.
At the same time, though, thinking back on that first night apart, I want to return to a few good habits I had. We used to guard our time together carefully, and now we have become a little slack in that department. We used to be better at writing notes for each other's lunch boxes, and now I cannot remember the last time I did that.
The first few months of marriage were tough but oh so sweet. Today, I'm choosing to remember and keep the good to make our marriage better, and get rid of the not-so-good. I hope you choose to do the same.
Each week I'm including some pictures of the first few years we were together. They aren't professional or perfect, but I cherish them so much, just looking back at the people we used to be.
Previous Posts:
10 Things You Didn't Know about Nathan
10 Things You Didn't Know about Me
Before We Met
How We Met
The First Date
The Struggles of Dating
The Proposal
The (Long Distance) Engagement
The Wedding Day
