Growing up, there was not a day that went by where I didn’t hear my mom give me some piece of marriage advice. Most of the time the advice given was, “The most important decision you will ever make in life is who you marry.” I always would roll my eyes and be like “I know I know.” Now that I’m older and have dated quite a bit of different girls and seen my friends get married, I totally understand it. I always thought my mom’s opinion was irrelevant but now I respect it and I have realized that she didn’t study marriage and family for nothing when she was in college.
I think there are many challenges that come with marriage. Each marriage will not and can not ever avoid these challenges or changes that come. It's the challenges and changes in a marriage that create tension and unfortunately, sometimes a divorce. My parents have a pretty great marriage and I would go as far as saying it's better than your average marriage. However, it definitely is not perfect and my parents have their own challenges.
Some of the challenges and changes I can think of in marriage are dealing with in-laws, having children, big decisions and purchases, along with just everyday little decisions. I think it's important before marriage to communicate and make sure that you and your future spouse are on the same page with how you want to raise the kids. I also thinks it's important to make sure you can at least tolerate your in-laws. This is something that is hard to control but it's important because as my mom always told me, "you marry the whole family." Then having children in itself is a big change because then your kids are all different and you have to adjust to their different needs
When I was engaged, my mom thought it would be a great idea to buy my fiancé and I, pre-marital counseling sessions. I'll forever be grateful for it because I learned so much about her and I think it saved me from a lot of heartache down the road. But I did think it was super helpful and interesting in some of the things I learned and questions our counselor asked us. He would ask us the littlest, dumbest questions like if we like to have our toilet paper roll over or under. I thought this was interesting but he made the point that we have to agree when we can and when we can't we better learn to agree to disagree. But he also told us that when these challenges, changes and disagreements come, we have to learn how to deal with it and we have to know how to communicate so we can hopefully solve the problem. These counseling sessions definitely gave me a better understanding and outlook on dating and marriage.
As much as I think I want to make sure I'm on the same page with my future spouse on every aspect I can be, there is a lot that I can't control. I also think that even the stuff we agree on, once we are married, all those different decisions can change and can cause disagreements. But at the same time, with good comes bad. Marriage has got to be one of the best things ever that can happen to someone but it can cause a lot of stress and disagreements. This is why communication and validation is very important. I am excited to get married and go through life with someone and learn how to adjust to the many different changes and challenges that we will face together and hopefully my wife and I can be one and learn to communicate and agree as we face challenges and changes head on.
Comments