What to Expect in the First Year of Marriage

A popular series of books has been written to help expecting and new parents navigate pregnancy and the early milestones in their child’s life. When you know what to expect and what is typical in a given situation, you know what to look out for, how to make sense of your journey, and the right questions to ask. In the same way, there’s great benefit in getting a heads up about what to expect in the first year of marriage.

The first year of marriage, as well as the subsequent years, can be anything from wonderful, beautiful, bewildering, disappointing, painful, blissful, memorable, disappointing, entirely forgettable, enriching, and more besides. Talking with trusted loved ones and going for premarital counseling can help to prepare you for what marriage often brings, but it’s only as you go through it that your own marriage will unfold.

What To Expect In The First Year of Marriage

Every marriage is different, so when it comes to setting out what to expect in a particular marriage, it’s better to lay out the typical things that marriages encounter in the first year. It’s important to note that a particular marriage may experience one, some, or none of the following, and if a couple experiences these, the intensity of it may vary from couple to couple. Some of what one might expect in the first year of marriage include:

Learning new things about your new spouse When you move in with someone, and you spend a lot of time with them, you’ll learn a lot more about them than you would have imagined. Sharing a home with someone exposes you to their habits that you may not have seen because the contexts in which you met and encountered one another might be vastly different from living together.

Your relationship will be challenged When you spend a lot of time with someone, it can create room for you to get annoyed with them, or for friction to develop. When you pool resources, need to consider the other person’s feelings and thoughts before acting, and are accountable, it can be challenging in a good way. It allows you to die to yourself and lovingly serve your spouse well.

Your relationship will deepen If you think your relationship was deep before, it’s quite likely that in marriage it will deepen further still. Couples typically know each other better with time, individuals are better able to be more vulnerable which increases intimacy, and you learn even more ways to love your beloved because you’re sharing a home and a life.

Relationships with others might change You may have promised yourselves and your friends that marriage wouldn’t change you, but many couples find themselves and their interests changing with time. If a child comes into the picture, it can further create a gap in life experiences between yourselves and your single friends, and it can change your relationships.

New beginnings are an opportunity for growth and discovery. These can sometimes be uncomfortable, but they are remarkable opportunities to become more of the person that the Lord intends you to be.

How To Handle Being Married And Flourish

The first year of marriage will have its fair share of newness, from exploring intimacy in all its aspects, sharing a home and other resources, to developing a deeper understanding of how your spouse thinks and functions. There may be new strains on the relationship, such as dealing with the in-laws, boundary issues, learning to handle finances jointly, or dealing with not being able to go home after you’ve fought because you are home.

As with other challenges in life, it’s possible to either flourish or flounder depending on one’s mindset, attitude, skills, and resources available to work through transitions or difficulties. You can flourish in marriage in your first year and beyond if you walk into it expecting that you’ll have to grow and learn new things. Anticipate that your relationship will change as you seek to grow together.

To flourish in marriage, you also ought to give your spouse grace and be willing to forgive each other, because you will both do much that will hurt, frustrate, and annoy one another. When you have conflict (and conflict will happen), address the issues, without blaming or shaming one another. It’s important to develop keen listening skills to hear what your spouse is saying as well as what they aren’t.

Flourishing in marriage also requires spouses to be willing to open up and be vulnerable with each other. Intimacy cannot flourish without vulnerability, which is the willingness to express one’s thoughts and feelings openly, even at the risk of rejection. A couple can also seek help by speaking with trusted loved ones, or with a couples counselor who can help them better understand their relationship and walk with them in nurturing healthy patterns and habits.