Wedding Blog
“So how is married life?” I get that question all the time these days. “It is awesome!” I reply. It really is kind of funny how Mr. D and I are truly your classic blissful newlyweds! Then, the next question that usually follows is, “So, is it any different?”
Well, yes, for us it has been SO different! For one thing, Mr. D and I were living long distance before, and now we are finally living together for the first time! We both moved together to a completely new city, Mr. D started a new job, and I recently left my company to get ready for grad school in the Fall. New home, new routines, new community…Married life has been completely different!
Anyway, I met up with a couple friends over lunch last week, just to catch up, when we got around to this question again. They were wowed by what a stark change in lifestyle marriage really has been for us. I had to agree that our situation probably was more unique, given that we timed it in a way that so many different major life changes ended up happening all at once. Most serious or engaged couples we know actually tend to be more settled down, and in essence, already married.
A case in point, one of my girlfriends is getting married in a couple weeks and started getting some pre-wedding jitters the other day. Her fiance reassured her by saying, “Don’t worry, nothing is going to change. We have the same mortgage, the same bank account, we are basically already married!”
Another example. One piece of marriage advice I got from coworkers was that “getting married really doesn’t change anything but your tax status.” From a day to day experience, everything really stays the same. All things that were great before will remain great, and all things that need work will continue to need work.
All this got me thinking. What exactly does it mean to get married? I don’t think I am too far off in saying that it meant something completely different for our parents’ generation. But these days, more and more couples are opting for committed cohabiting relationships, either with marriage as a possibility down the road or altogether forgoing that. Famous couples who have chosen that path include Brangelina and Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell. And while Hollywood is one thing, I do personally know couples who have been together for 10+ years, in fully committed relationships but who do not see marriage as necessary.
So what does it mean to get married? Why marriage for us?
Well, I’ve already mentioned what it means for us on a more day to day level. But beneath that, just given our career paths and religious beliefs, it has meant an assurance that allowed us to freely make some extremely big and life-altering decisions together, a public declaration of our commitment to each other, a covenant with our God that we will love one another unconditionally, a personal promise to one another that we are in it for the long haul, and also just a whole new level of intimacy.
But I’m curious to hear. Is married life going to mark a significant change in daily life for you? What does it mean to you to get married? And for those who are already married, what has your experience been?
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I think about this a lot, because the entire time we’ve been together, Mr. MagPie OR I (or both of us!) have been in school. I’m no longer a student, but he’ll be one up until a few weeks before the wedding.
It’ll be weird to have two major status changes for him, I’m sure — husband and full-time physical therapist — and will bring the MAJOR change that we’ll see each other on a daily basis which, as we don’t currently live together (and he works five part-time jobs to stay afloat) we definitely don’t now.
Someone actually commented to me that we should delay the marriage until a year after he finishes school, to allow him to get used to his new routine (pish-posh!) which I SO didn’t appreciate hearing.
Hi Ms. Daffodil, my husband and I are in pretty much the same boat as you. We dated long distance and a move for either of us required some pretty huge lifestyle/career changes: I’m an attorney in a large city law firm, and my husband was a forester in the woods of a completely different state. I wouldn’t consider a move before we got engaged. Once we were engaged, it was much easier to commit to making the necessary changes to bring us together, geographically. I took the bar exam in his state and he started looking for forestry positions near where I lived. To our surprise, he managed to land a very rare opportunity about an hour north of where I live. In two days he’ll be here, and five days after that we’re moving to the burbs to split the long commute. In the meantime, other than the band on my finger, I haven’t really felt “married”. We’re really looking forward to finally start living our lives as husband and wife.
I’m really glad to see this post. The Man and I had this discussion recently, sparked by my mother asking what would be different once we are married. We’ve been together for four years, living together for almost three and a half. I don’t believe anything fundamental will change for us in the day to day other than how the rest of the world relates to us as a couple. Tax status is one of those thing, but so is making sure that we are able to speak for the other when they can’t, we don’t have to get our mothers on the phone. We will have more control over ourselves as a couple. That’s part of why we decided it was time.
B-E-S-T P-O-S-T E-V-E-R! Im not married yet but im as curius as you are on this topic!
For my FH and I, it will make a pretty big difference because we’ve never lived together before. I think that says enough in itself 
My husband and I were also in a long-distance relationship prior to getting married, although we did move in together about 6 months before getting married. I moved into his apartment, in another town, got a new job, tried to acclimate to a new city hours from my family, AND plan a wedding! It was very stressful, and it meant that post-wedding was the first time my husband and I really got to just be together, learning what the other was like when not living in another state. It’s been a learning experience, a great one, but it has had its trials for sure.
I would say that in our relationship, being married has represented our determination to stay together. My parents split when I was young, my siblings and I had different last names…I was determined to have a different relationship, and part of that meant being married and STAYING married. Our biggest change has been becoming a united couple in family situations–coming to terms with the idea that we are now a family of our own and as such we sometimes must take a stand against our families in order to protect “us.” I think both sides take our union a little more seriously now that we’re married, (not that I think that’s appropriate), and give us a bit more respect when we say what we, as a couple, need.
I have been living with my fiance for 6.5 years. We have a joint bank account, and we already bought an apartment and a car. We’ve been engaged for a little over a year and a half, and we are finally getting married this fall. (We waited for him to finish law school, establish himself in his firm, and save enough for a wedding.) I honestly don’t think anything will change, except that it will provide a certain level of assurance that we have decided to make this lifelong commitment to one another.
However, I am glad that we decided to wait to get married. Most people do the reverse: marriage->live together->joint account->make large investments. For us, we’ve established our life first and now, we can just make it official and start to live it. It’s a very nice feeling to think that we can just enjoy one another without other worldly concerns after we tie the knot.
My fiance’ and I have lived together for a year and a half and are getting married in 11 days. I don’t think our day to day lives will change much, but I’m beyond excited to stand in front of our family and friends and make a promise to each other that we’re in it for good, that we absolutely love and adore each other, and most of all that we have chosen each other. Forever. I feel honored…so so so so truly honored, that my fiance’ chose me out of all the millions of people in the world to be his wife. To all the people that know him, that meet him in the future, or that he’s known for years and years - I get to be HIS wife! His one chosen person. And he’ll be MY husband! I just can’t even describe how happy that makes me.
And in addition to all that, we’re building a life together - accumulating property, sharing finances, etc…I like to know that if something were to happen to one of us, the person left with the horribly broken heart wouldn’t also have to fight off greedy family for material (and sometimes very sentimental) items.
But all in all — to be husband and wife…I am itching for the day…
I’ll contribute from the opposite end of the spectrum.
Married life? IT SUCKS!
I would give anything to revert back to being engaged. Engaged was good. Engaged was happy. I miss engaged.
Married is stressful. Married is lonely. Married is bad.
For us, we’ve also had the major life changes. But they’ve mostly been negative — we now see each other only 1-2 times/week, and in June, it’s going to drop to 1-2 times/month, when he moves away from his intern year here in the same city to a different state, while I continue to work on my Ph.D. Because I know that we’re facing several years of living apart, I’m working minimum 80 hours/week in the lab, so I’m always as exhausted and stressful as he is, and it’s exhausting and draining trying to work the equivalent of two full-time jobs in the lab AND still keep up with all the laundry and cooking and all the household jobs because Husband doesn’t help out. To be honest, I’m almost looking forward to him moving away, because at least I’ll have less to do when I don’t have to take care of him!
Just to add to it, we have a lot of newlywed friends, who all work 9-5 and have allllllllllll this free time, and all they do is call me and leave voicemails and send emails about how wonderful married life is and how much free time they have, and isn’t it great just spending so much time together, etc etc.
But, these are changes we anticipated facing. If you don’t expect to have giant roadblocks, then I don’t think that your life will change much, for better or for worse.
I love reading posts like this - it really makes you think about what marriage is all about to you as an individual and as a couple - thank you!
Wow. Great post! Even greater question! My fiance and I have been together almost eight years and have been living together for over five. It seems like getting engaged would change little, and really that detail (getting engaged, that is) really hasn’t changed a whole lot. What really changed things was when we moved across the country together last year. He gave up a job he loved so I could attend the phd program of my dreams. That’s when I knew I would be a fool to not marry such a wonderful man and get to keep him forever and ever
DH and I also made a lot of big life-altering changes around the time that we got married: DH is also starting residency, and I’m starting grad school. We moved cities and moved in together. So far marriage is great and better than I ever thought it could be! For us it was also important to make a commitment in front of our friends, family, and God. That commitment is something I take incredibly seriously, and that’s why we got married.
This is a good question. We were together for 8 years when we got married (though we starting dating when we were just 17). We had already lived together for 3 years, got 2 cats, bought a house, combined our finances (although not all of them, we still operated as though it was one though). The only thing we didn’t do completely together was holidays.
When I am asked how is married life now, I say, pretty much the same. What I mean by that is that my everyday life and relationship did not change. I do think that it was a huge step and it meant alot to both of us. To me, it’s more the promise that you will work to be together for the rest of your lives and also it made me open to really seriously planning for our future together. We do want to have kids one day and I wouldn’t want to do that without being married (if we were together…). For our families, even though they already considered each of us a part of the family, it made it official.
The biggest change in my everyday life ultimately was my name as I did change my name to my DH’s last name.
i love being married. my husband and i were together for 7 years (5 of which we were living together) before we got married (we had waited until he was done with school). since we had been together for so many years already, there were no surprises. we knew exactly what we were doing, and we were excited to move on with our lives together.
the only thing that really changed was our relationships with our families. my husband is the baby of his family, and while we were dating/engaged, it was hard for him to say no to them. like, really hard. (we’re asian - his mom is the master of guilt). but since we got married, he’s really manned up and i LOVE that change. he puts me and our kids above everything else, and i cannot be more thankful.
I also loved this thoughtfully penned post. Like you, we began our relationship long-distance, but we have both been in Denver for 2 years now, so that will not change. However, we have not lived together and will also be making a religious committment at the time we are wed, as well as a public statement to our nearest and dearest regarding our committment to one another. I am anticipating some big changes for us (and hopefully a new job for me as I will have a new grad degree the month before we get married) and I am really looking forward to them. I know living together will be an adjustment, but it is one I am looking forward to.
JulieJulie–your situation sounds unbearable! Have you talked to your husband about your concerns? Does he know that he’s your husband, not your dependent? Is there ever going to be a time in your relationship that he’ll share the household work? I hope things get better for you and the separation isn’t just a temporary end to those problems!
I like the stability and permanence that marriage added to our relationship. We’d been together for eight years when we married, so it’s not as though we weren’t stable before, but now there’s just this feeling of an ability to chart our lives as one rather than two who are in love. I am a big fan!
@Jay: Truthfully, after this year, HIS life will get a lot better as far as hours. The specialty of medicine he picked has great hours, so when he moves away, he’ll have loads of free time, and that’s when I would expect him to kick in and help out. Of course, that’s also when he’ll be living a 4 hour drive away, so he won’t be able to help out since he won’t be here. Sigh.
Unfortunately, with my chosen career, I’ll likely never be working less than 60 hour weeks, so eventually when we have children, he’ll get be the one to play soccer mom!
I don’t anticipating feeling like marriage sucks forever. It’s just been disappointing going from being so happy when we were engaged to this — it also didn’t help that we got married two weeks before he started his intern year, so we associate the start of marriage with the start of everything going to hell! I think the key difference is that lots of his friends with crazy schedules just got married as well — but they all have spouses that work 9-5 — not spouses that are working just as many, if not more, hours as well.
I’m not engaged and not married, but about to move in with the guy I intend to marry. (And he intends to marry me too!) We’re both currently in a situation that doesn’t lend itself well to getting engaged (we work together) so we’re working on getting out of that situation first. But I’ve found myself getting impatient. I think to me, getting engaged and married really indicates a new level of committment that we really are going to be together forever. Also, we want kids, but I don’t want to have kids until we’re married — again, it’s a committment thing to me.
My FH and I have been living together for the past 2 years. Marriage to me means commitment, announcing to the world that we are in this for the long haul. I think there is a difference in people’s perception when you talk about your boyfriend/fiance vs your husband. Even though we live together there were certain things I wasn’t ready for without being married. This will be the first time we combine our finances and make large purchases together (cars homes etc). He made some big moves/changes to be with me but this will be the first time I’ll be comfortable with making major changes for him. Then there is the prospect of children, we’ll see.
Yay, love this post! I was a bit saddened by julieulie’s post - but reality is what it is and affects everyone in different ways. Like a lot of others, my husband and I lived together for many years beforehand, so not too much about everyday domestic life/challenges/responsibilities has changed. But two major things I have noticed are:
1. His attitude. He LOVES being a husband and takes a lot of pride in it.
2. The respect level from our friends/family/etc. has changed. It’s as if they take our relationship more serious. I think that the respect level within our own relationship has changed also. I think we saved the sweetest parts for now.
Why marriage?
I thought a lot about this question. My fiance and I have been together for 3 years and lived together for the last one - so nothing much will change between us. We have fairly religious parents, but they know that way of life isn’t for everyone, and don’t really care about the married = legitimate thing.
So why not just stay like Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins? Who needs a cliched piece of paper to tell you what you already feel in your heart and act out with your life?
I found my answer in the Episcopal Service we will be using for our wedding. The only thing that really stands out as something you can’t get anyway else is the part where the priest asks the whole congregation if they will support this couple in their new life together. Then everyone in the room says they will. From the church standpoint - this is binding. Essentially you just got 250 people who have promised never to speak badly of your marriage, to stand by you in good and bad times, to be your cheerleaders and mentors. People who have watched us pledge ourselves to each other and who have promised to take responsibility for that pledge.
Marriage is a social thing - announcing to the community that a new family is being created and the community responds by promising to uphold that family.
(PS - this is also why I think homosexuals deserve to have their right to marry recognized, so that society has a responsibility to uphold those families too.)
Great post! We’ll be two weeks shy of the 5 year mark when we get married, having lived together for a little over 2 years. For me marriage adds another degree of responsibilty for and toward each other. Also, we both want to have children, and for us, marriage is a must-have factor in that equation.
In truth, I think Michael says it best in his post that Miss ST linked to a few weeks back.
http://emersonandmichael.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-get-married.html
Call me a hopeless romantic, but this says it all to me:
Why Marriage?
Mari Nichols-Haining
Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body…
Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,
Who won’t hold them against me,
Who loves me when I’m unlikable,
Who sees the small child in me, and
Who looks for the divine potential of me…
Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night
With someone who thanks God for me,
With someone I feel blessed to hold…
Because marriage means opportunity
To grow in love in friendship…
Because marriage is a discipline
To be added to a list of achievements…
Because marriages do not fail, people fail
When they enter into marriage
Expecting another to make them whole…
Because, knowing this,
I promise myself to take full responsibility
For my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness
I create me, I take half of the responsibility for my marriage
Together we create our marriage…
Because of this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.
I’m with Gery on this… best post! I am interested in knowing too.
we didn’t live together before we got married, so everyone asked if things were radically different for us after the wedding… our answer was “not really!”
although we didn’t share an apartment, we’ve been grocery shopping together for a year, so we saw each other for every dinner. (we only lived ten minutes apart) i had gone on vacation with his family, we had studied abroad together, etc. our routines were already pretty well integrated. so transitioning to marriage was not a big deal at all.
something that i think made our transition easier, which i’m curious to hear others’ input… i have four brothers, he has two sisters and two close girl cousins who lived near by… we both grew up living with the opposite gender, and we think that might be part of what made our transition easier. thoughts from others?
Very intersting topic Daffodil, especially for someone like myself who sees marriage as a life changing event. Mr. Avocado and I don’t share anything right now, not a house, not finances, not even an intimate relationship (I’m still a proud owner of my V-card!). The separation is compounded by the fact that we are living apart from each other right now. Getting married is a complete transition for me, and yet I don’t feel nervous at all, only very very exited!
I just got married this past june. We have been together for about 7 years and have lived together for most of that. My husband wanted to move to FL to finish his degree early in our relantionship and he invited me to come along. Six years later and we got married. We were living as married couple sharing responsabilities, buying a home and all aspects of married life. Going through the wedding event did bring a lot of passion back in our relationship. I love it.
Meisner
Wow, so many thoughtful posts.
I think married life will be different for us. We’ll have lived together for two years by the time we get married, but we’ve lived with roommates. I wouldn’t have traded the time for anything. We’ve learned a ton about each other and figured out how to live together without the stress of it being just us. We’ll be moving and FI will be starting grad school while I try to find a job, so it will be a bit of a change, but I’m really looking forward to it. I do know there are bound to be some bumps though.
My husband and I dated nearly 7 yrs before we finally got married. We didn’t live in and we actually lived in separate countries due to our careers.. most of our time together pre-marriage was long distance. Meeting someone for coffee or a night out dancing is definitely different from actually living together, handling chores, bills, finance, in-laws & family, friends, mortgage, social -pressure.
After the wedding I moved with him and started a new life. Marriage has definitely been life changing. I moved countries, changed my job role and have no friends in this new country. In addition to all this he wants me to change my last name and I don’t know if I have the ability to just wipe out my identity completely given I have already done so much to just be with him.
I believe if we lived in before we got married it would not be so difficult. There are good moments and there are extremely stressful periods as well. It didn’t help that we are Asian and had so much pressure when we were getting married imposed by his family. It brought a lot of baggage into our marriage initially at a time when we should have been happy just being with each other. My Mil isn’t an easy person either and she tries to impose on us all the time and tell us what we should/ shouldn’t do. She is a tough one to manage and always tries playing a guilt game on her son. She never wanted her son to marry me and it took hubby dearest ages to convince her. She even made me cry so bitterly the day after my wedding because of some stupid misunderstanding. The day after getting married I actually regretted going though with the wedding because of her. I was just so bitter and unhappy about everything that happened during the wedding period and all the rules imposed on us especially on me and we ended up fighting so often.
There are days I wake up depressed and long for the old days when I was single. Some days I am happy. I know that this is a testing phase and it will get better. Friends who haven’t lived together before getting married tell me it takes around 1.5 yrs to finally settle down and get comfortable living with your partner. I think living together before getting married is the best decision that a couple can take to sort out their differences and settle down and figure out if they really want to be together the rest of their lives.
Well, I decided to become a follower of Jesus Christ when I was 19…so since then I haven’t dated(kissed,hugged,held hands, had sex) with anyone..Before Jesus I was a pretty premiscuous lady, so marriage for me will be insanely different. I haven’t dated in almost four years! My wedding day will be the first day I kiss my husband…and we will not live together before this date…so I can imagine it will be completely different, exciting, and challenging. Marriage to me is still the union of two people becoming one in the physical and spiritual realm.
For my husband and I, it was a huge change. We didn’t live together before we got married. We didn’t share finances. We both believe that an intimate relationship with another person is to be shared only within a marriage. So marriage, if anything, brought A LOT of great pleasures (wink, wink), neither of us had experienced.
I’m learning that to be a spouse is to give up myself for someone else. While I understand it’s important to be my own person and maintain my individuality, I don’t come first anymore. My marriage does.
So why marriage?
For me, it was b/c I loved this man. I wanted to spend every morning waking up beside him. I wanted to create a family with him. I was so over the long distance thing (4.5 years!!!). Because marriage to me is the most sacred and intimate relationship two humans can have. And he’s really good looking. 
we will be experiencing a major change when we get married too!
for us, marriage is the ultimate relationship. there is no comparison. bc of our faith, we too believe we are entering into a covenant bw us and God. our faith is the foundation of our relationship and for us, in order to be fully intimate (mentally, spiritually, physically) with each other we have to enter into a covenant with God.
we’ve never lived together and have no shared accounts. so getting married for us will be a major overhaul. i am sooo glad we get experience it this way. in a way, it would be a let down if we had this ceremony and nothing changed. having big party then a vacation and going back home to the “same old thing” would be dissapointing for us.
thats what works for us, but i know there are many ppl where it has worked differently, to each their own!
thank you all for sharing your thoughtful and insightful comments! it is really fascinating, exciting, and interesting to hear all the different perspectives and experiences!
@julieulie: my heart goes out to you…i feel like in a way, i know where you are coming from! mr. d is in currently in his intern year as well and it is definitely so tough on both of us. one of my managers (whose spouse was also a physician) used to say that there is a special place in heaven for the physicians’ spouses. i know that this probably isn’t that much of an encouragement, but know that you are not alone, and all we can do is make the best of the situation. i know u associate it with the start of married life, but imagine how much tougher it would be for u guys if u guys waited even longer to get married. mr. d and i actually contemplated living apart for a while, but we decided we wanted to be in the same location after getting married even if it meant one of us has to compromise. i know ur situation is less flexible, but just wanted to let you know that i feel u and u’ll be in my thoughts!
@anxious: i’m so sorry to hear about the challenges with ur MIL! has ur hubby stood up to her for u? i think one of the most important things we learned in our premarital counseling was not to underestimate that both of u need to come first in each other’s lives (next to God, if you believe in God), but that means before parents, siblings, etc. Not doing so has been something that undermines many a marriage. But yea, just want to say hang in there. If you truly and deeply love one another and are committed to making it work, I really believe it will.
@Csharp: i love what you said about the public support and accountability a wedding provides. it is one thing to commit one on one, but to be able to share it and have it recognized by your community is truly something that is unique about marriage/civil unions.
seriously, thanks to everyone for sharing such thoughtful posts! it’s definitely been illuminating for me! keep ‘em coming!
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Mrs. Daffodil, San Francisco/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 26, Nonprofit Strategy Consultant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Resident Physician
Engagement Date: December 29, 2006
Wedding Date: May, 2008
Blogging Since: August, 2007
Venue: Church w/ floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Valley; Westin in downtown LA
About Me: I moved around a lot growing up, but consider myself a Southerner at heart. I love scrapbooking, dancing, doggies, and diet coke. I am all about personalizing everything and hence, I'm a DIY bride who is just loving the entire wedding planning process! Mr. Daffodil and I met in our college fellowship group and were "just friends" for three years before we started dating. We've been together for four years now and can't wait to get married in sunny SoCal, Mr. Daffodil's hometown.
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