Why do they say....

the first year of marriage is always the hardest?

I guess the adjustment to it.

so far so good for me :)

I think Jill is right...the adjustment...but that's more for those couples that never lived together before.

Most of couple live together before hand and get the 'adjustment phase' out of the way before the marriage.

That's just my guess....

Thankfully we never had a problem when we first moved in.....we're too alike!

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Posted by Blu-ize

We lived together but the first year was still very tough for me.

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Really? How come?

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Posted by babybug631

I think the hardest part for me has been the money thing. Sharing money is weird and it's an adjustment. And I can't spend a ridiculous amount it on a bag with feeling guilty because now it's 'our' money. Living together is fine, the same as it was before. And weirdly we've become closer.

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We have been sharing money for years, so there is no adjustment there. I guess we take money a little more seriously, because we went to buy a home and start a family, we are not just dating and going out all the time like we were

We didn't live together so it was a little rough. I'd say the first 6 months. We were deciding whether to shop together, who would cook, who would clean...Plus for a while his friends and brother thought they could constantly hang out in our condo...They are welcome, but we also need our own time, and his single guy friends had a hard time learning that.

We are taking it all in stride, it has been fun so far, but def. an adjustment-a good one!

I think that the first year of marriage is the hardest. I breathed a sign of relief on our first anniversary.

We did not 'officially' live together beforehand, but I spent plenty of overnights at his apartment (sometimes a week at a time). We have been sharing finances for years, so that wasn't the adjustment.

We closed on our home 8 days after we got back from our HM, so there was the immediate added stress of being broke first-time homeowners.

It took us a while to figure out how much time we needed together and how to respect each other's privacy. There was something strange about not having anything that was 'mine' anymore.

Our first real married fights were worse than our previous fights. Don't know why.

My marriage is strong and wonderful, but it is okay that the first year was tough. I think it was a good thing actually.

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Posted by 103005FallBride

I think Jill is right...the adjustment...but that's more for those couples that never lived together before.

Most of couple live together before hand and get the 'adjustment phase' out of the way before the marriage.

That's just my guess....

Thankfully we never had a problem when we first moved in.....we're too alike!

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DH and I did not live together before we were married and we are 8mths married today and so far so very very good :) Of course we've had our little moments but worked them out and learned from them. I never imagined it could be this wonderful

Adjusting to living together, sharing money/bills, deciding chores...
For us it has not been bad at all.

DH and I lived together for a while before we got married. when he first moved in w/me, there was definitely an adjustment period. we were both set in our ways and that did cause some friction. but we made it through.

after the wedding when we merged our bank accounts, it was a little 'weird', but we got through that too

For me the first year was marriage was tough, but not because of my DH.

He is a SAINT, he is my bestfriend and just the best person I have ever known.

it was other things that happened during the wedding, family drama. I had a huge falling out with my Mom, sister and MOH. I now have a relationship with my Mom, but it took months. I still don't give my sister or MOH the time of day.

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Posted by jilmadison

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Posted by Blu-ize

We lived together but the first year was still very tough for me.

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Really? How come?

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Very hard to say. I think life got in the way..we got back from our honeymoon and went right back to work etc..felt like newlyweds but we were not acting like newlyweds. I guess I thought it should be different. Obviously, I got over it.

I don't regret living together though, still think it was a good thing to do.

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Posted by Blu-ize

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Posted by jilmadison

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Posted by Blu-ize

We lived together but the first year was still very tough for me.

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Really? How come?

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Very hard to say. I think life got in the way..we got back from our honeymoon and went right back to work etc..felt like newlyweds but we were not acting like newlyweds. I guess I thought it should be different. Obviously, I got over it.

I don't regret living together though, still think it was a good thing to do.

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I 100% agree with this!!!! I think I had a VERY different idea as to what newlywed life should be and coming back to reality after the wedding and an amazing honeymoon was like a total slap in the face. I even said to DH about 2 months after the wedding that the first month of marriage was definately not what I thought it would be. Not that I was unhappy, I couldn't be happier to be married to him, but I definately had a fairy tale life in my head.

(we did not live together before either)

I agree with the fact its an adjustment, living together, money issues, space, picking little fights and getting over them, picking the right time to put your foot down! Like I absolutely refused to visit my inlaws after we went one time and they made my DH and I miserable. So far its been over a year since we went to thier house!
Also, unfortunately most couples divorce within the first year, or first 5. Sadly I know too many that have gone that route.
Hubby and I are coming up on year 2!!

I would say that marriage also sets the stage for a lot of serious conversions that most people don't have, even if they live together. Even though these are good conversations they can be stressful.

1 Do we want children? How many? When do we want to start? Would we adopt or use IV if we have problems? If we aren't the same religion how will this work out?

2. How do we split our time with families? Where will spend holiday? If one family is close and other is far how will this impact things?

3. What are our long term goals? Do we want to take a small vacation each year or save money for larger vacations every few years? How much do we put away for retirement? How much sould be have in a emergency fund? What type of investments do we want to participate in (eg how risky should these be)

4. Do we want to buy a house? How much house do we want? Who will do what around the house?

I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. It's not that the first year of marriage was 'hard' it's just that if you're comparing to what comes after it, it just gets so much better At least it has for us. When I look back on our first year, we were adjusting to living together, and to our new financial set-up, there was A LOT to learn about being married - and all sorts of build up around the wedding to recover from - and expectations about what it's supposed to be like, etc, etc.