What is it like being married?

I got married a couple months ago. It was a long engagement, but I am happy I had a wedding.

For the longest, I just wanted to elope and go on a honeymoon. I didn’t feel like I needed to have a wedding, I just wanted to marry my now husband and start our lives, or continue our lives, together.

However, I did have a wedding and as much as it pains me to say it, I’m so glad I had one. It was a fun event and I spent most of the time dancing and partying.

I was resistant to the idea of having a bunch of people I don’t know coming and asking me to make-out with my husband in public (all of those darn clinking glasses); however, I got over it when I remembered that I’m a drama queen and I love attention, and I was definitely the center of attention that day.

Now that I’m married, one of the main questions I keep getting asked from family and friends alike is, “How is married life?”

This question always confuses me because it’s not any different. I keep wondering what married life is like for other people. My husband and I have the same relationship we had before we were married. We still hang out, play games, watch movies, and pick on each other as usual.

Before we got married, my husband and I dated for three years. We spent a lot of time getting to know each other and what makes each other tick.

We lived together for about a year and a half prior to getting married. In this time, we were able to go through many difficulties of life together, and find ways to make it through and persevere.

During the time we dated, I personally went through many changes and challenges in life.

Throughout this whole time, I was concerned that I would end up a different person than the one my husband agreed to date, however he said that the changes were for the better.

Prior to our wedding, I had been dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress in my life for a few years. I was unaware of the amount of anxiety I was under, and everyday I felt it.

Now that I’ve learned how to manage and cope with it, I am a much lighter, carefree person. My concern was that I’ve gone through these changes and he might not accept them, but we have walked hand and hand in all of these discoveries and worked on them together.

We also lived together before we got married. Although many people have their opinions on this, it was very important to me.

There’s a difference between dating someone, and then going home at the end of the day, and having to go one a date, and then still stare at their face all day. By living together, we learned a bunch of different things about each other.

Like I learned that there’s no way I can share a bathroom with my husband, because he is in there all the time. He spends much more time in the morning getting ready than I do, which used to cause a lot of stress, because my job had a specific time I had to be there while he had flex time.

I learned that sometimes, his depressions gets bad, and how I need to act and how I can help, or not help when he gets in those situations.

I learned that we need two separate TVs because he is too giving and will always choose to give me the TV instead of doing what he really wants. I watch TV and he doesn’t, so now we have two TVs side by side. When he wants to play games, but I want to watch TV, we have that flexibility and we figured out what works for us.

By living together, we worked out the hard, annoying things prior to the marriage and we were able to actually work through them, fight through them, and come out stronger in the end.

We dealt with things like chores, cleaning, and organization. Things like who does the dishes, who takes the trash out, and taking turns cleaning the bathroom, are the uncomfortable parts, but we worked through them, although I still have problems with him leaving glasses in places that aren’t the sink.

I think I would be more concerned if after the wedding, our relationship drastically changed, because that wouldn’t be the person that I married. If our relationship changed after marriage, it wouldn’t be the same relationship that I signed up for to be in for the rest of my life.

The fact that people expect it to be some magical transition does confuse me. The only difference so far is that our car insurance has lowered drastically. I also get carded less when I’m at the bar because I have a ring on my finger.

So far, being married has been just like the rest of my relationship thus far. It’s been fun, supportive, and has be excited for the future. I don’t understand why people would expect that to be different so sorry to disappoint. But please, please stop asking me how married life is.

I say this because, do people expect me to say that I hate my husband and married life is a terrible, horrible mistake, and I can’t believe I did this? If this were the case, they wouldn’t have to ask, I’d probably be a puddle of despair.

But alas, I’m not. I’m extremely happy and I’m preparing for my honeymoon in the next few days! We will be flying to Cancun and will enjoy our second honeymoon as a married couple in two months. I’m excited for next week, and excited for these next years.