Marriage is Hard

Although I have not been married very long, I have had a few people say something along the lines of, "Well, you're married now so everything is perfect and you don't have to worry about anything"! Wrong. So so wrong. Marriage is one of the hardest yet most gratifying things you will ever do. My husband an I are still in the honey moon stage so we haven't experienced any transitions aside from just getting married. Some of the hardest transitions in marriage are when the first child is born, and when they become "empty nesters". These are also the two most common times for divorce.

The birth of the first child can be especially hard. Often times, the new mother has put all of her focus and attention on the new bundle of joy because it is challenging and the husbands take the back burner. It is not because they don't love them, they just have a lot of stress with the new baby. The husbands can often feel under appreciated and unloved. This is also a time when husbands and wives will fin themselves disagreeing a lot more yet studies show that they actually agree a lot more than they have before. The problem is that they are not communicating. The husbands can sometime be a little ornery because they can feel unappreciated and neglected, In turn, the wives feel unappreciated. It is so important that wives keep their husbands involved with the pregnancy. Tell them what it feels like and let them feel the baby kick. make sure you keep them involved when the baby comes and do everything you can to give them the attention they need as well. Your marital happiness will thank you for it. 

The Second major transition is when the children all leave the home and the couple is alone again. Often, couples put so much time and effort in their children, that they forget about their marriage. After the children leave, they don't have anything in common keeping them together. It is so important that couples make time for each other and continue to date often. They need to keep up hobbies and activities together so that they still have things to do together after the children leave.

A lot of things can be trying in a marriage and times of transition can be particularly tough. If you keep good communication and keep your relationship strong and put each other first, you will be able to get through anything.