Wedded Bliss Wednesday: In Which I Feel Unqualified

So this week's topic is marriage advice. Hahahaha, you came over to the blog of someone who has been married 6 months. I hope you brought your salt shaker with you! I feel like I should entitle it "relationship advice" since most of my answers probably come from our entire time together (a little under 3 years) and not just 6 months of marriage.


If you could give one piece of advice to any married (or soon-to-be married) couple, what would it be? I'll write this for the soon-to-be's: Focus on the marriage more than the wedding. Yes, planning a wedding is a blast and will take a lot of time, but that is only one day of your entire married life. If your church doesn't offer any type of prep, or you aren't affiliated with a church, seek an outside resource. We went through our church requirements (which were life changing, by the way) and also got some books on our own to go through. We had some wonderful conversations about topics that probably wouldn't have otherwise come up for a while. We also made so many great memories of going through the books together because we made it fun, rather than a chore. For example, we did some chapters on a long road trip to my sister's wedding, and had a picnic dinner on a blanket in a park, where we went through a book until the sun set.

Us as a "soon to be married couple". We met for breakfast the morning of our wedding! Steven was calm, cool, and collected. I was afraid I might throw up my breakfast.
What is an absolute MUST for any marriage/relationship? Figure out how you fight, and then work on fighting fair. This is one of those things that we worked on a LOT during our dating/engaged life. We either didn't fight fair, or we were so hurt by the idea of fighting with each other, that arguments would last for so much longer than they needed to. The above pre-marital books actually helped a lot, along with a lot of communication between us. The result has been that we now argue less, and they arguments are so much shorter. There are things that used to cause arguments that now we can have discussions about, instead. That's not to say that we, our communication, or our arguments are perfect; but we are committed to continue working on them so it doesn't become a big ugly spot in our marriage. 
What is the #1 no-no in a marriage? Secrets. Now, I'm not talking about secrets like "I'm going to surprise her with a romantic dinner". And maybe some of you who have been married a long time feel differently about this; I don't know. But we have decided that what works for us is not having secrets from each other. If we are one flesh, then there should be nothing I can't share with him and he can't share with me. He should be the one person in the world that I can tell anything to, and vice versa. The moment we feel that isn't true, we know we need to address some things within our marriage. I have seen so many instances of spouses hiding things from each other, or intentionally with holding some pretty heavy stuff, and I can't imagine how that feels on their hearts or how it would feel to the other spouse if they found out. That much honesty isn't always easy, and may not come naturally but it's what we expect of one another and is working so far.

Newlyweds 
What is the biggest lesson you have learned from your marriage? The biggest lesson I've learned from my marriage so far is that I'm still learning to be a wife and that's ok. And my husband is still learning to be a husband and that's ok. We are still learning to be married. I sort of thought we would just fall into the roles and they would come naturally. Being a spouse is hard work, but it is some of the most fun, rewarding work I've experienced.