Adjusting

Sunday, February 24th, marked 3 months since beau and I said "I do" and committed our whole lives to each other. It feels a little longer, but time often makes us feel that way.

Marriage life has been lovely thus far. Here’s how we have been adjusting to:

Being in each other’s space/presence. Beau and I have been in a long-distance since we started courting in 2009. I was a junior in a college in New Jersey at the time. Graduated Spring 2010. Then attended grad school in Connecticut from Fall 2010 to Spring 2012. The most time we’ve spent together in each other's presence either consisted of weekend visits to my school on occasion or week-long vacations at his parent's home in Georgia. Although this was the case, we currently are not facing any challenges where being in other’s space is involved. Beau works a normal 40-hour work week while I am home during the days, so that gives us more than enough time to be out of each other’s hair. When we are both home at the same time, we still have a balance between the amount of time spent together. Which brings me to my next point…

Spending time together. As I have stated before, beau and I are apart for a considerable amount of time during the workweek, and so obviously much time is not spent together during that time. When he’s home, most of our time time together is spent during dinner. We aim to eat dinner together every day, even if that means I have to eat at undesirable hours (read: really, really close to bed-time) because he was working late or fasting during the day to deliver a sermon/teaching at church. We have also been trying to spend more time doing things together on weekends. This is a bit of a challenge for the both of us, because I am a loner through and through. It is very easy for us to find ourselves at separate corners of the house on a Saturday doing our own thing. And there are often times when beau comes home from work and I don’t have much to say to him, neither do I desire to say much. This was especially true during the first few weeks to a month after our wedding/honeymoon. I am just so used to being alone from my childhood to even now, that I am accustomed to being by myself with no one to talk to and I am perfectly fine with it. More recently however, doing this drives me mad. This is the push I needed to be more interactive. Beau and I have also discussed “unplugging” on weekends in hopes of spending more time together. Hopefully we’ll try that soon.

Communicating. In terms of sharing our thoughts and ideas on trivial subject matters, beau and I could get shiny award stickers for a job well done. We talk about our days and things that interest us with ease. I also find  that I am able to speak with him about issues that affect me with ease, as I have always been able to do because I trust him and his judgment. Sometimes it takes a while for me to get the thoughts and words out, but I am never terrified of discussing serious matters with him. Our hiccups in communication therefore lies in explanations and understandings. This was the most frustrating thing for me while we were dating and even now. I would explain something in what I thought were the simplest of terms, but he would not understand what I was saying. And for beau, he would explain something to me and his explanation would not make sense. Not for lack of understanding the words, but for lack of understanding or agreeing with the concept. Those are the two major issues we face in our marriage. Well, that and talking about issues that beset us sooner rather than waiting until we feel we’re ready to talk about them. We are learning.

External hardships. I keep hearing from others, ad nauseum, that we will face many hardships. We already know that and have faced many hardships up to our wedding day and even after. Not that we’re “Super Couple” and are able to ‘fight off hardships’, but I think we have just learned to expect them and battle them with grace and humility. Through our marriage, I am learning a lot about handling situations with grace and humility through beau.  I have only recently expressed this to beau, but I really and truly have observed his ways and am taking note. I usually freak out about things. I worry often. I cry lots. I. freak. out. But beau? He is like a gentle soul. I used to look at him and think that he must have some sort of bottled up frustration under all his meekness (and I am sure he does at times), but he doesn’t let it show. Neither does he harp on hardships or problems. He’ll sigh as loud as possible. He’ll have a furrowed brow or will have a discontented disposition about him. He’ll even make up a song about the problem and sing it for 5 minutes straight. But, I have never seen him complain, or worry, or … freak out. I am learning.

 Our overall relationship. Life as a newlywed is not all that it’s cracked up to be in mainstream. It is frustrating. It takes work.  But isn’t everything in life worth having? I have gone through a mixed-bag of emotions since saying “I do”. I found an article while browsing the interwebs one day, and it seriously made me feel better knowing that nothing is wrong with me for feeling the way I felt sometimes during these last 3 months. It was just a shock-to my system, for lack of a better term. But I got jolted back to reality and realized that marriage is such a beautiful thing. You get to share your all of your firsts with this person during this time period. Your first holiday. Your first achievement. Your first disappointment. Your first roadtrip. Your first hmm hmm (haha - yes, we waited until marriage to do this as well). You get to share a life with your best friend. Someone who truly loves and honors you, wants the best for you and puts your needs ahead of their own at all times. Beau is such a God-loving, God-fearing man. I love him for it. Our marriage was meant to be. I was meant to learn from it. I was meant to be broken down and built into a stronger person from it. I am learning and adjusting quite well.