Practical Help for Newly Married Couples

The big day is finally behind you. Hopefully, it was lovely and everything you dreamed it would be. No more planning, dress fitting, or meeting with people. Now you get to create a beautiful life with your new spouse. Easy, right?

As much as we want it all to feel easy, there will be things that come up that are challenging. Little differences like how you fold t-shirts or if the glasses are stored right side up can cause more conflict than you care to admit. Add to those bigger changes like merging finances, delegating responsibilities, and even family planning, and the early days of marriage can feel a bit like a minefield.

Instead of dealing with little explosions, you can find marriage help with resources and counseling to help you start your marriage on a calmer, more joyful path.

What is unique about a new marriage?

Sometimes it can be hard to go from the joyous, exciting time of planning a wedding to the reality of being married. There is a shift that happens emotionally that can be challenging, more for some people than others. It is common to feel underwhelmed or let down after the wedding. You’ve spent time building up to a big, exciting event, and when it has passed, life can feel ordinary. There is nothing wrong with that feeling.

With the excitement of the wedding behind you, it is time to shift to building a marriage. This isn’t a quick process. It is a lifelong process that takes dedication, and sometimes help is needed as you move forward.

When you are newly married the focus is on merging two lives. That means taking two different people; with two different ways of thinking, processing, and doing things; and putting them together to figure out what that looks like. While it would be nice if there was no conflict in this process, part of building a marriage is the process of shaping two people to live a life together. That means compromise, and even stepping on one another’s toes occasionally.

While you can’t avoid all the changes, you can find support for building a marriage from simple tips that help both you and your partner.

Communication matters

One of the most important skills that will help your marriage is communication. When we think of communication, we often think this means talking about everything. However, as you merge your lives, taking time for talking, listening, and understanding are all equally important.

Talking with your spouse is an essential piece of communication. As both of you have the opportunity to talk about what you are thinking, feeling, and experiencing, you see how you weave your lives together. Not only does it convey your ideas, but it helps you feel connected.

The important thing is to talk. This isn’t about yelling or ranting when you’re upset. When you make time for conversation as part of your daily rhythms, it can help prevent you from feeling upset and misunderstood.

Just as talking is important, listening is essential. Without really listening to your spouse, you lack an important connection. Listening involves being quiet while your partner talks, but also responding with thoughtful questions, body language, and reactions.

When you use both talking and listening in your marriage, you create space for understanding. The key to understanding is recognizing that you are not the same person as your partner. They think, feel, and act differently than you do, and that’s okay. Understanding is being intentional about seeing what your spouse feels in a given situation, without judging them or trying to make them feel the same way you do.

When you use these three ideas together, you and your partner both feel more understood as individuals, which leads you to a better connection as a couple.

Areas of conflict

As you navigate the early days of marriage and learn how to communicate well, there will be situations that arise when you don’t agree. This is a normal part of marriage, and part of the process of building your relationship together.

Let’s look at some common areas where differences arise.

Different ways of doing things

It could be something as simple as how you load the dishwasher or whether you sit at the table for dinner. Each person comes into a marriage with a lifetime of experiences that have shaped the way they do things. Perhaps your family always ate dinner and watched the news at night. Maybe you never rinsed dishes before loading the dishwasher.

These seemingly simple things can feel significantly bigger when you are faced with living your life with someone who does them differently.

Different ways of doing things can be handled with grace and love. Try thinking about these questions:

• Is this important to me?
• How can I communicate kindly with my spouse about this?
• What would it look like to compromise?

In the instance of eating dinner in front of the television versus at the table, this might look like:

• Is this important to me? I like to watch the news when we eat dinner, but it’s not essential.
• How can I communicate kindly with my spouse about this? My family always watched the news at dinner. How did your family eat dinner?
• What would it look like to compromise? Maybe we could eat at the table on certain nights or eat dinner at the table and then watch the news together after.

If a simple situation like this is left without intentional communication, it can result in many nights of arguments or resentment. As you notice differences arise, try to be proactive in communicating about them from the beginning to avoid bigger conflicts later.

Handling hard questions

The questions seem innocent. When are you going to have kids? Are you buying a house? Will you move closer to your family? These are often some of the first questions married couples get. And they don’t hear them once or twice. They are asked things like this by many well-meaning friends and family members as a way of showing interest in the married couple’s new life together.

Unfortunately, questions like this can feel hard for couples depending on their circumstances. This can create awkward situations with people you care about and with each other.

Instead of waiting for the questions to come, talk to your spouse so you’re on the same page. You can decide how you want to respond so you are both comfortable with the answer. This helps foster closeness and trust between you and your spouse as you partner together and only give as much information as you are both comfortable with.

If you and your spouse feel more comfortable, it is perfectly reasonable to tell people you don’t know yet and move on to another subject. You don’t have to answer things you and your spouse are not comfortable with, even if it is well-intentioned.

Finances matter

As one of the most common areas of disagreement, it can feel risky to bring up finances in the early days of marriage. But the sooner you talk about it, the sooner you can come together and avoid conflict.

There is no right way to handle your finances. The most important thing is that you find a way that works for both of you. If one of you is an avid saver and budgets every penny, while the other has a secret account just so they can spend freely, this won’t be helpful as you grow your life together. The more you can work together and come to a point of agreement with your finances, the easier things will be.

Differences vs. problems

It can be hard to tell when you and your partner have different ideas versus when you really can’t find common ground. Differences are things you can often work out through communication and compromise. Sometimes, they are even things you just learn to live with about your partner.

Support for newly married couples

If you are struggling to work through things or come up with a way that works for both of you, try getting marriage help from a counselor. A counselor can help you work through a specific issue or general communication issues.

If you would like help with an issue or just want to start marriage on firm ground, consider Christian counseling for married couples. Reach out to our offices today and we will connect you with a Christian counselor from our directory. Even newly married couples can benefit from the marriage help of counseling. We are ready to help you and your spouse build the strong marriage you hope for.