Today I want to talk about the first year of marriage and four things that
James and I feel are the best things you can do for your marriage in that first year.
Hey girls! Tiffany Dawn here. And if you're new to this channel, every Tuesday
we have another conversation that Christian girls need to be having. So you
can hit that subscribe button to join us every week for more girl talk. So the
first year of marriage can be hard. Here are four things that I think can give
you a really firm foundation from the start, and can kind of set your marriage on
the right track. Number one, expectations. I did not realize how many expectations
I had going into marriage because a lot of times you don't realize that you had
an expectation until it is unmet. For example, when we were first married, James
wanted to have lunch with one of his co-workers who was a woman. And I had
just assumed that once we got married we wouldn't have one-on-one lunches with
someone who was the opposite gender. James had never assumed that. That was
one of my expectations we had never talked about and it suddenly was like,
unmet. And I was like, "Do you not love me?? Like how could you even want to have
lunch with her??" And we had to talk about it and come to a conclusion, like what
does this look like in our marriage? That's one example of an expectation I
had and that he had and they were totally different. So any time that
happens in your marriage - and it will happen in every marriage - you just got to
talk about it. Have some conversations, be flexible, and figure out what is a good
expectation for your marriage. Tip number two is learn. I feel like this
is your biggest job in your first year of marriage because the more you
understand your spouse, the better you can love them. And learning about the
other person also means learning about ourselves, so we can help our spouse
understand us. Especially for James, he would be the first to say that he is not
a very self-aware person. He had to start really learning to understand himself. So
there were certain times when he'd be tempted to just kind of push things
under the rug and not deal with it, not talk about it, he just was like, "If I
ignore it, it'll go away." And he had to start realizing that about himself -
because that doesn't create a healthy marriage - and learn how to talk about it
with me. On the same token, when we got married, I realized there was so much I
needed to work on in myself and understand about myself, that I started
to going to counseling and it was the best decision I've ever made. It has been
so helpful in my life and in our marriage. Tip number three is prioritize. I think
the best thing we did in our first year of marriage was doing everything in our
power to prioritize time spent together, both alone together but also doing
things together. And in some seasons of life, that's going to be harder than others.
If you just got married and you're both in
college, that's gonna be a whole lot harder than it was for us. But do
whatever you can, make it a priority to be together. When James and I got married
we decided to get rid of one of our cars and just live a one-car lifestyle - which
for most people would not work at all, but for us like I was a freelance writer,
I worked from home, James's work is actually four blocks from our apartment,
and he could walk. So we didn't really need two cars and we didn't want to get
in a habit of just living two separate lifestyles. We wanted to really get to
know each other and prioritize time together. Now we didn't spend every
moment together; that would not have been healthy for us either.
James volunteered with Youth for Christ on his own, I led a girl's Bible study on
my own, we both had nights with our friends, so it wasn't like our whole life
was just each other, that would have wouldn't have been healthy for us either.
But being together was a top priority, because it helps you actually learn
about each other and know how to love each other better. And lastly number four,
just know that it's okay if it's hard. The first year of marriage can be really
hard for some people. It's really easy for some people, it's really hard for others, and both
are normal. Especially if this is your first time like living on your own or if
you're moving to a new place or quitting your job or you know, there's so many
transition factors that can be involved and those are just stressful. And so
melding your life with someone else, that right there is a huge transition, let
alone anything else you bring into it. And it's okay for that to be hard. It
gives you a chance to work through those tough things and grow closer together. So
those four things made all the difference for us, but one other thing
I really struggled with was jealousy. I had a really bad relationship in the
past and I started looking at how James treated other women and thinking he was
just like my ex. And my ex would flirt with other girls in restaurants; he was
like a terrible boyfriend. And I started just assuming that James would rather be
with someone other than me. So the first year of our marriage was really hard as
I struggled through jealousy. So if that's you, then check out this video
here all about with jealousy looked like for us and what we did to work through
it. I love you girls! Bye.