20 Pearls of Wisdom for After I do: What They Didn’t Tell You

Getting married can be the most exciting thing of your life. It’s a time of love, a time of preparation, a time of change, a time for something new, something borrowed, and something blue. It’s a love story with a happy ending and the start of a new beginning.

When you get married, you transition into a new season, a season that’s unfamiliar to you, a season that will bring about a lot of change and uncertainties, a season where there may be times when you may question your decision, doubt yourself, and wonder if you made the right decision; you may have cold feet, and even want to throw in the towel and quit, and this happens when the expectations you have for marriage, don’t match the reality of what marriage really is. But it’s okay, it’s normal to feel this way because you’re in a place in your life, where you’ve never been, and being in this place can be scary.

But, as you start your new season, your new beginning, and your new life, I want to share with you, some pearls of wisdom you should always remember:

1. Always remember what attracted you to your husband, remember your first date, remember the feelings you had when you first met, remember the thoughts that ran through your mind after your first date, and always remember the things that make you smile, even when he is not in the room.
2. Don’t get so caught up with work, that you neglect each other and the relationship. Marriage takes work, you must put in the work required to build a strong and lasting marriage.
3. Always remember that marriage requires time and attention. If you neglect it, it will die; but if you nurture it, it will grow and get stronger and stronger each day.
4. Don’t lose your sense of self or your identity in your marriage. You don’t have to do everything together. It’s healthy to have separate hobbies and interests.
5. Always spend quality time with each other, and put in effort to make time for each other, and don’t make excuses as to why you can’t.
6. Identify things you can do together, schedule time to do them, and don’t take each other for granted. Doing things together will strengthen your marriage.
7. Always remember to cuddle. Physical touch is important in a relationship, it helps to create and enhance love, it makes you and spouse feel wanted, it calms you down, makes you comfortable, provides comfort, and makes you feel connected to each other. There will be times when your touch is all your spouse needs.
8. Express your thoughts and feelings to each other, and communicate clearly. Don’t expect your spouse to automatically know what you’re thinking or feeling.
9. Talk about and share your hopes and dreams. This causes you to develop a deeper connection with each other, opens the door for you to support and understand each other better, and motivates you to work together towards accomplishing what your desires.
10. Be willing to compromise. Compromise is very important to the success of your relationship. Some things are not worth fighting or arguing about, you don’t always have to be right, some things you have to just let go of. Ask yourself, is it worth losing your relationship over?   
11. Always be flexible; change occurs in every relationship. Accept that you can’t always have things your way, things are not going to always go as planned, or how you want them to go.
12. Take time to listen to each other. Listening makes you feel loved and understood. Ralph Nichols says, “The most basic of human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”
13. Learn how to manage conflict. There are some conflicts you may not ever resolve, but you can learn to manage them by coming up with agreeable solutions, compromising, agreeing to disagree, and letting go.
14. Always be honest with each other. Honesty is an important foundation in which a relationship is built and is a key component to having a healthy and strong relationship.
15. Don’t be afraid to ask each other for help, when you need clarity and when you don’t understand. It doesn’t make you weak, it says I’m willing to humble myself and put my pride and ego aside, to seek help from my spouse.
16. Deal with problems as they arise, and don’t sweep things under the rug and act like they didn’t happen or don’t matter. Any problems you don’t deal with, gets bigger, grows stronger, and becomes the “elephant in the room.” Don’t let issues linger by thinking they will go away, if you ignore them.  
17. Don’t go to bed angry. Going to bed angry causes division, you will get up angry, it affects your sleep, and impacts your emotional and mental health.
18. Don’t talk negatively about each other to family and friends; after you have forgiven your spouse and moved on, your family and friends will still be mad, and forgiveness won’t come easy with them. The more people you keep out of your relationship the better your relationship will be.
19. Love unconditional and always say I’m sorry.
20. Always remember why you said, “I do.”