It has been about 4 months since we tied the knot, and we are finally taking our big honeymoon trip (as you read this!). It seemed like an appropriate time to share some reflections on marriage.
If people ask, I tell them married life is much like unmarried life, except we don’t have to plan a wedding. This is not the whole story, but it is definitely the easiest answer when making small talk.
If you think marriage is going to drastically change how you feel about each other, you are (maybe) wrong. I’m not more committed to T now that I have a paper saying we are legally bound. I do not love him more, except in the way you love someone more and more each day.
For a lot of people, it is the money stuff that changes. In my mind and heart, the money stuff was a gradual shift. From us not really sharing any details with each other, to us sharing most expenses and all information, to us thinking of our money as shared (even if it is still in many accounts). When we were engaged, or maybe when we moved in together, I stopped thinking of it as mine only. It was ours. We still don’t have the money stuff totally smooth. We are working towards a cohesive one-pot approach, but we aren’t there yet just because the law says now that we are married, we’d split 50/50 if we divorced.
For me, the family stuff has had the biggest impact. We used to split up on holidays since our families both live far from us and each other. We still may do that occasionally, but I expect it to be rare. It means learning to think of his family as my family, my family as his, and most importantly, him as my primary family. That’s big – but it is also something that happens over time. Legally, we became a family on our wedding day, but emotions don’t always follow the law.
When we were “just dating” (yet already life partners in our minds), it was annoying to hear married friends gush that being married was SO much different (and of course, so much better), as though your relationship entered some new level unattainable by those without wedding bands. That may be true for some people (or so i hear) but it is not universal. Our relationship evolved over time from being two people crazy about each other working to intertwine two very separate lives, to two people who are fully connected, promised to each other for the rest of forever. And I felt promised to T long before he asked me to marry him.
This isn’t to say I didn’t love our wedding, didn’t love having our family and friends celebrate our love, and didn’t love taking the time to mark our commitment to each other. I loved all that. I do think it was important – not because it changed our relationship, but because it celebrated the relationship that was already there.
Our relationship is constantly changing, growing, and entering new levels. The wedding wasn’t THE MOMENT. It was one very significant moment of many moments, and there will be many more to come.
And you know what? I can’t wait!
