10 Things I’ve Learned Since Getting Married

I have grown a lot in the last year as a wife. Or at least I hope I have. Here are some things that come to mind when I look back over the last 12 months.

#1 BEING RIGHT IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS BEING HAPPY

I am the oldest of four kids. I like to be right. I went into marriage with all of these ideas about how it would work. I had ideas about how to do the dishes and when to go shopping and what brand of pasta sauce to buy and how to prioritize school and work and our finances and the list goes on and on. I had all of these ideas and opinions and they were all right.

So when I got married and my husband wanted to use a sponge instead of a scrub brush to wash the dinner dishes and came home with the cheaper generic brand of red spaghetti sauce instead of the brand I listed, I had a lot of opinions to give him. Tiny little corrections about stupid things that I had decided were important and that I would like him to change. And, to be honest, I still prefer a scrub brush to a sponge when I wash the dishes, but do I bring that up anymore? No, I don’t. Because that is my preference and it doesn’t matter.

Because those little nit-picky things aren’t worth the awkward tension that inevitably comes up when I insist on being right. Because, when it comes to things like this, only one of you can be right. But if you are willing to let go of being right, you can both be happy.

#2 THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE

Change is not an easy thing, but it’s usually good. All growth is change. Back when Colter and I were dating, we never argued or got on each other’s nerves. We never had to worry about who would do the dishes or take the garbage out. We went out on dates to places other than the grocery store. And all of those things have changed. We have definitely gotten on each other’s nerves over the last year, more than once. We have a little apartment to keep clean and up-kept and going to run a few errands together is one of my favorite date nights to go on. I have changed and evolved and grown and so has our relationship. Colter and I don’t stay together for the same reasons we got together and thank heavens for that. If our relationship was exactly the same as when it began, it would end. So my advice about this change is, when you feel it happening, don’t panic. Grow together and take care of each other. Communicate the things you are feeling to each other.

And know that date night at the grocery store instead of the movie theater is probably going to happen. More than once.

#3 SEVEN NIGHTS A WEEK IS A LOT OF DINNERS TO PLAN

When I was single and when we were dating, I rarely planned meals. When I got hungry, I would eat something, either scrounging for something in my kitchen or I would go out to get some sort of fast food.

Once we got married, we had new bills to pay and two people eating out of one pantry and that was a big change. I was instantly overwhelmed, trying to fill the shelves and the fridge and come up with a meal for every single night of the week. I was also working 12-hour graveyard shifts at the time, so I felt like I always needed to have food available for my husband on nights that I worked.

So here’s what I do now. I keep a running grocery list on my phone, in the reminders app, that is shared with Colter. When we run out of something like milk or bread or peanut butter, it goes on the list. We can both see changes and either of us can go shopping if needed. I made a list of things to eat for breakfasts and lunches and I keep it on the fridge. It helps me to keep foods on that list in stock and helps when I’m hungry and can’t think of what to eat. I plan dinners for Mondays, Wednesdays, and either Fridays or Saturdays, Sundays are family dinners with either my parents or my in-laws, and the other three nights are leftover nights. When I do cook dinner, I make the amount that my mom would make for my family of six growing up. This gives us plenty of leftovers for the two of us to eat for lunches and dinners and my list of dinner ideas doesn’t get cycled through nearly as fast. I also took the time to create all of my recipes as GoogleDocs and save them to my GoogleDrive. I can easily see all of my recipes on my phone, add ingredients to the grocery list, and Colter can pull up recipes too and either make dinner or make dinner requests for coming weeks.

It’s not a perfect system, but it works for us.

#4 TWO PEOPLE MAKE A BATHROOM DIRTY SO FAST

Holy crap this surprised me. Maybe I’m not a messy person or maybe men are just gross, but our bathroom must be cleaned every single week without fail or else I feel gross. So every week, I wipe the mirrors, sweep the tile, wipe the counters and the outside of the toilet with an antibacterial wipe, use a squirt of toilet bowl cleaner, and when I shower on either Friday or Saturday, I bring a bottle of all purpose cleaner and a sponge in there with me and clean the shower after I’m all clean.

Voila! A less gross bathroom!

#5 SOMETIMES YOU WILL SPEND SO MUCH TIME TOGETHER THAT YOU’LL FORGET TO MAKE TIME FOR EACH OTHER

Colter and I did not live together before we got married, because as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we believe in celibacy before and outside of marriage.

While we were dating, we were one of those couples that wanted to and tried to spend every waking minute together. We lived 30-45 minutes away from each other for the majority of the year we dated, so this involved a lot of driving. We managed to see each other almost every single day and we never got sick of each other. There was never enough time to spend with one another.

After we were married, and consequently living together, we could now spend all of our time together, and we did. This weird thing started happening, however. Even though we now had the ability to spend all of our time together, we simultaneously missed each other and needed some space. This was because we had switched from actively spending some of our time with each other, to passively spending all of our free time together. That had to change.

We learned that it was okay to need some time or some space to do our own thing. It didn’t mean that we don’t love each other, people just need ‘me time’. We also learned that even though we have all this time to spend together, we needed to plan ways to actively be with each other. Going on walks, watching a movie, going grocery shopping, cooking dinner, whatever we can think of. Actively and intentionally being together. Sending cute or sweet or flirty texts to each other throughout the day. Simple gestures to actively love each other.

#6 YOU WILL HAVE CONFLICT AND CONFLICT IS A GOOD THING

Colter and I both hate confrontation and conflict. We are both the type of people who will bottle things up until they explode. We prefer to go silent rather than argue with each other. But those are not good qualities. The ability to let the little things go and forgive others who have wronged you? Wonderful quality. The personality trait of refusing to resolve issues that are bothering you and allowing them to fester? Not a good quality.

I highly recommend listen to the TEDxUSU talk by Clair Canfield called The Beauty of Conflict. He provides tools to stop viewing conflict as a problem and to start viewing it as the solution. I cannot recommend his talk highly enough.

#7 TAKE THE TIME TO COMBINE YOUR FINANCES AND TO KNOW THE DETAILS OF THEM

If there is one thing that can cause stress in your relationship at the drop of a hat, it’s money. Not having enough money, spending money at the wrong time or on the wrong things, not communicating your expectations or limitations with money. Money can be the worst, but you have to deal with it, so figure out a budgeting method that will work for you.

Some basic suggestions I would give are to:

• Get a joint banking account
• Go over all of your subscriptions and consolidate. For example, you don’t really need two Prime memberships or two Netflix subscriptions
• Set a budget, agree on said budget, and start integrating parts of it into your life payday by payday.
• Communicate with your spouse about any money you plan to spend over $20-50, depending on your budget. And do your best to communicate this before you spend the money
• Pay your tithing every payday, rather than monthly. This helps you to keep it full and not have to worry about setting money aside.

#8 BEING FAITHFUL TOGETHER IS BOTH EASIER AND HARDER

I am not talking about being faithful to your spouse. I am talking about faith. Faith in God, faith in Jesus Christ, faith in His Plan, faith to keep doing the hard things.

I thought that getting sealed to my eternal companion in the temple would solidify my testifying forever. That I would never tremble or shake in my testimony again and that my conviction and spiritual strength would be twice as strong because there were two of us now. And sometimes it does feel like that. Other times leaning on each other becomes difficult. It can be so easy to get lazy together. Here are my tips:

• Pray together every night. Sitting up, kneeling, laying down. However you do it, pray together.
• Go to church every Sunday. Sit next to each other.
• Watch General Conference together and take notes with your spouse in mind.
• Pray for each other in private.
• Have faith in the covenants that you made to each other. Remember them.
• Read your own patriarchal blessing quarterly and your spouse’s blessing every six months or so (at least). It can be so good to be reminded of the divinity of your own heritage and the divinity of your husband or wife.
• Talk about things you are struggling with both inside and outside of your faith. You never know when you’ll receive an answer or from whom. I’m prone to thinking our spouses are excellent tools for the Lord to use to get to us.

#9 HAVING A FOREVER BEST FRIEND WILL MAKE YOU BRAVER

Spontaneous has never been an adjective used to describe me. I am the type of girl who always has a plan, always follows the plan, and loves to make plans. Spur of the moment plans or changes to my schedule have never sat well with me.

So when we decided to go to China and teach English for five weeks less than a month before we would need to be on a plane, I was more than a little uncomfortable. And spending over a month in a very foreign country with a very foreign language and very foreign food was something I never, ever would have done on my own. But with Colter by my side, supporting me, it was suddenly possible. I knew that no matter what happened or how badly the trip went, I would have him with me through it all. Having the unwavering support of someone you love can enable you do to the impossible.

On the flip side, when you love someone, you need to be that unwavering support. When you believe in your spouse and they know that you trust them to move mountains, suddenly they believe in themselves and they accomplish more than they could alone.

Colter is my best friend in the entire world and I will never trade him for anything. He makes me better and braver than I could ever be on my own. And that little bit of extra courage opens up endless possibilities for me that I wouldn’t know how to reach without him.

#10 HUSBANDS DO WEIRD AND GROSS THINGS

I don’t know why I didn’t know this before…I grew up with a brother. But husbands do weird and gross things. In private and in front of you. I don’t really think there’s a way to prepare for it, you just have to get your laugh ready and know that you’re going to need it. Laughing is less exhausting than crying. And you’re going to be doing a lot of one of those things, so make the choice now.

Colter once pressed his butt up to touch mine while we were laying on our sides in bed and farted loudly. He did this completely intentionally and without any sort of warning. And I absolutely love him to death. This is why I say there is no real way to prepare.