“Just be prepared. You two are going to have a very difficult first year of marriage.” Well-meaning friends repeatedly expressed their concern during our engagement and early months of marriage. We spent a great deal of that first year on high alert. Was this “the fight” that would catapult us into crisis? Was his unwillingness to make love to me tonight the beginning of a trend?
In retrospect, the first year was not so difficult. (It was year ten, FYI.) We had the to-be-expected negotiations (Wait! I’m supposed to do the oil changes?); compromises (Could we consider not going to your parents AGAIN for ALL of the holidays?), and disappointments (You have to work late on our anniversary?). We laid down the ground rules for arguments and learned how to give each other space. We also caught glimpses of just how broken we were. Maybe that’s what those friends had seen and forecast in their doomsday prophecies.
To read more, please click on this link