I think the only major difference was that we stopped arguing since we were no longer planning a wedding 😂 but really, I think that for me, what changed things were us moving in together (three years before we got married). Especially since it was a few months before a pandemic... going through that together really cemented everything. I was sure of him, he was sure of me - legally proclaiming it in front of friends and family was nice and so special but our day-to-day dynamic hasn’t changed at all. We were already pretty good at communication, including setting annual relationship goals and checking in about them! I would say post-marriage our biggest shifts have been managing a shared chore and mental load spreadsheet and a twice monthly budget meeting (on a scale of 1 to 10 how much is my type-A showing?!).
I totally relate to the relief / extra free time you feel post wedding. I always say my favorite part of our wedding was eating breakfast the next day and realizing it was all over. 😂
No, I don't think you're supposed to feel different a month after the wedding-- but I think in about 12 months you do look back and feel different. I was very "nothing has changed at all, marriage is a silly institution" after my wedding for idk, 3-6 months? But then truly the logistics and legalities of whatever you may choose to bring upon yourself as a married couple is the biggest change. After all, it is a legal decision with legal implications, and those legal implications are not casual at all in whatever you may partake in (merging finances, budgets, major savings, life insurance, powers of attorney, wills). To get life insurance for me and my husband, some rando third party wants to come to our home and take our blood? That's one kind of marriage. My husband's pre-marital financial dividents having to be "swept" into a joint account because our state recognizes earnings as marital on pre-marital funds? -- that's one kind of marriage. Figuring out what second car WE are putting OUR money towards-- that's one kind of marriage. Frankly I didn't think our finances were relevant enough to have a will, but then an advisor was like "when you add up life insurance and your home, it is relevant". So, hello, lawyers. That's one kind of marriage. Also, my husband doesn't automatically have power of attorney? I have to, like, make it so? With a lawyer? IDK why that didn't just become a thing with the marriage.
No marriage is the same, but there are some consequences to signing the document and filing with a state, and its not romantic stuff, and its difficult stuff when it comes up, and its beyond necessary in some cases. And those, more than anything, have popped up unexpectedly. And oh boy, has it made life different!
Granted... a lot of these legal and financial implications might feel paramount in my 8 month pregnant brain. But even so, I think there comes a turning point with marriage. Before marriage its "if something happens, I could go back to my single life" but for me post-marriage its "if something happens, I need to protect myself and my life." I'm sure its heightened hormonally with a child on the way or children already born who you are responsible for-- but I'm not sure if that's exclusive to couples where children is concerned.
Maybe its the whole "til death do us part" implication. It's not really just about divorce/separation, its also about death. So romantic lol.
I am so happy to see this post -- I recently got married (11/11) and SO many people warned me about the "post-wedding blues" I felt a little odd that I felt some sense of relief (a HUGE to-do item for life was done -- and with that came way more stress than I had anticipated!). I have rationalized it that many people/society put emphasis on the wedding rather than the marriage -- and I can see if the wedding is the destination and not the starting point people may feel some sadness. Anyway, all this to say is that I think this is a hidden blessing of getting married a tad bit older (I am 35).
Honestly, I don't feel any different at all. People ask me all the time and I feel guilty for saying "no." My now-husband and I lived together for 4 years before we were engaged. What was supposed to be an 8-month engagement turned into a 32-month engagement due to COVID, border closures (he is German, we live in Germany, wedding was in the USA...he legally couldn't enter the USA for almost 2 years due to USA border closures to Europeans), etc. By the time the wedding actually happened, we were just RELIEVED to finally have had a wedding after postponing 5 times. I think I do have a bit of sadness and grief over a lot of the celebrations I wasn't able to have with friends, etc. (we canceled our large wedding and never rescheduled it)...but I also think that's normal given the state of the world!
The free time after the wedding was over was honestly so refreshing. Not gonna lie, I was pretty over the planning phase right before the wedding and just wanted to get married and stop having to plan things! I felt mostly the same after we got married too, I think it’s a fairly normal feeling!
After getting married, people would ask all the time if it felt different and I always would say no! I agree with you, Kelly, in how you feel. I felt very committed to my husband and secure in our relationship before, and getting married didn’t change it. It was just a fun party/celebration for us! I will say the one thing that has changed is navigating the in-law relationship and now having to take a whole other family into consideration, not just my own, which has been challenging, particularly during the holidays.
For me, marriage was a huge shift mentally. We had a very short engagement (~3 months) since I wanted to be married in September, and didn't want to live in planning mode for over a year. Before our engagement, I made decisions (spending, schedule, etc.) with my own best interest in mind. With the formal commitment from our vows, I shifted to prioritizing what is best for us as partners. So I guess that could be seen as deeper love, but I definitely didn't feel sadness or pressure!
I’m not married myself, but I’ve asked so many of my married friends this question. I was obsessed with finding out the answer! Every single one of them said no!
After our wedding, I did feel a slight change, but it didn’t come from *within* our relationship - we already lived together, had a dog, had a joined life. In the immediate aftermath, any change felt was probably due to the shared experience of feeling so held in love and celebration at our wedding (having tapped into the cosmic force you refer to!).
The more subtle, slow shift was a change in the external factors around our relationship - the way others see and treated our relationship. For better or for worse, people in our society tend to treat a marriage more seriously - the legality of signing forms/medical documents, invitations to parties/weddings/holidays, the way Boomers treat you (lol). When meeting new people in work or formal settings, the role of husband/wife/spouse has certain connotations and is easier to define than the broad term of girlfriend/boyfriend/partner. We were still just us, but I found the world was categorizing us in a new way.
Nothing really changed for us relationship-wise, as we had lived together for 4 years at that point. We also had a teeny tiny Covid wedding so not much planning at that point. However, I had not appreciated how much pressure there would be on having kids immediately post-wedding from others, even though we had been very vocally child-free. I also did not change my name but some relatives still insist on using my husband’s surname 🤷♀️
Honestly, I just felt really joyful post-wedding and the main disappointment was that the long weekend flew by so quickly/we were so strung out from planning that we didn’t anticipate *how* supremely amazing the wedding would be (caveat, things definitely did go wrong, but vibes were immaculate lol). And then, conversely, one day on our honeymoon we had an apex mountain of an argument in-transit so nothing really changed there either lol...in fact it wound up creating space to discuss some hurts we each had with each other from our wedding. So after all of the shiny stuff, we’re still just two human beings doing our best and that’s what sharing life is?
In many ways, I think that being married has just deepened our commitment and made our life together feel sweeter. I did change my name for many reasons and those reasons have only fortified in the last year. We simply don’t know about kids -- I’m a 1989 baby and I’m resolute in not giving in to timeline fear in order to force a decision.
At the end of the day, I think what you’ve said about celebrating the universality of love is deeply profound. And for me, the experience of making public commitment pledges of that love to my now-husband remain the most magical moment of my life. Feeling that magic flourishing and being nurtured through our life together in the years since has some sort of weird alchemy to it. So that feels different simply because that formal forging through our own rite of marriage -- though a secular ceremony -- just means a lot. And though I believe in agnostic forces, I have to say that the ritual of the actual wedding ceremony/experience of blacking out is some strange transformative forces at work. I’ll never forget that and I wish so much that we had more secular rites in our cultures!
I have been married almost 7 years now and never really felt different after getting married. I was somewhat sad/somewhat relieved once the actual wedding was over but I felt no different. I never changed my name and have no intention to and like you we are also child free even though it wasn't by choice. I hope whatever upsetting work news you both received all works out, and you enjoy your first year as husband and wife!
I think the only major difference was that we stopped arguing since we were no longer planning a wedding 😂 but really, I think that for me, what changed things were us moving in together (three years before we got married). Especially since it was a few months before a pandemic... going through that together really cemented everything. I was sure of him, he was sure of me - legally proclaiming it in front of friends and family was nice and so special but our day-to-day dynamic hasn’t changed at all. We were already pretty good at communication, including setting annual relationship goals and checking in about them! I would say post-marriage our biggest shifts have been managing a shared chore and mental load spreadsheet and a twice monthly budget meeting (on a scale of 1 to 10 how much is my type-A showing?!).
I totally relate to the relief / extra free time you feel post wedding. I always say my favorite part of our wedding was eating breakfast the next day and realizing it was all over. 😂
No, I don't think you're supposed to feel different a month after the wedding-- but I think in about 12 months you do look back and feel different. I was very "nothing has changed at all, marriage is a silly institution" after my wedding for idk, 3-6 months? But then truly the logistics and legalities of whatever you may choose to bring upon yourself as a married couple is the biggest change. After all, it is a legal decision with legal implications, and those legal implications are not casual at all in whatever you may partake in (merging finances, budgets, major savings, life insurance, powers of attorney, wills). To get life insurance for me and my husband, some rando third party wants to come to our home and take our blood? That's one kind of marriage. My husband's pre-marital financial dividents having to be "swept" into a joint account because our state recognizes earnings as marital on pre-marital funds? -- that's one kind of marriage. Figuring out what second car WE are putting OUR money towards-- that's one kind of marriage. Frankly I didn't think our finances were relevant enough to have a will, but then an advisor was like "when you add up life insurance and your home, it is relevant". So, hello, lawyers. That's one kind of marriage. Also, my husband doesn't automatically have power of attorney? I have to, like, make it so? With a lawyer? IDK why that didn't just become a thing with the marriage.
No marriage is the same, but there are some consequences to signing the document and filing with a state, and its not romantic stuff, and its difficult stuff when it comes up, and its beyond necessary in some cases. And those, more than anything, have popped up unexpectedly. And oh boy, has it made life different!
Granted... a lot of these legal and financial implications might feel paramount in my 8 month pregnant brain. But even so, I think there comes a turning point with marriage. Before marriage its "if something happens, I could go back to my single life" but for me post-marriage its "if something happens, I need to protect myself and my life." I'm sure its heightened hormonally with a child on the way or children already born who you are responsible for-- but I'm not sure if that's exclusive to couples where children is concerned.
Maybe its the whole "til death do us part" implication. It's not really just about divorce/separation, its also about death. So romantic lol.
I am so happy to see this post -- I recently got married (11/11) and SO many people warned me about the "post-wedding blues" I felt a little odd that I felt some sense of relief (a HUGE to-do item for life was done -- and with that came way more stress than I had anticipated!). I have rationalized it that many people/society put emphasis on the wedding rather than the marriage -- and I can see if the wedding is the destination and not the starting point people may feel some sadness. Anyway, all this to say is that I think this is a hidden blessing of getting married a tad bit older (I am 35).
Honestly, I don't feel any different at all. People ask me all the time and I feel guilty for saying "no." My now-husband and I lived together for 4 years before we were engaged. What was supposed to be an 8-month engagement turned into a 32-month engagement due to COVID, border closures (he is German, we live in Germany, wedding was in the USA...he legally couldn't enter the USA for almost 2 years due to USA border closures to Europeans), etc. By the time the wedding actually happened, we were just RELIEVED to finally have had a wedding after postponing 5 times. I think I do have a bit of sadness and grief over a lot of the celebrations I wasn't able to have with friends, etc. (we canceled our large wedding and never rescheduled it)...but I also think that's normal given the state of the world!
The free time after the wedding was over was honestly so refreshing. Not gonna lie, I was pretty over the planning phase right before the wedding and just wanted to get married and stop having to plan things! I felt mostly the same after we got married too, I think it’s a fairly normal feeling!
After getting married, people would ask all the time if it felt different and I always would say no! I agree with you, Kelly, in how you feel. I felt very committed to my husband and secure in our relationship before, and getting married didn’t change it. It was just a fun party/celebration for us! I will say the one thing that has changed is navigating the in-law relationship and now having to take a whole other family into consideration, not just my own, which has been challenging, particularly during the holidays.
For me, marriage was a huge shift mentally. We had a very short engagement (~3 months) since I wanted to be married in September, and didn't want to live in planning mode for over a year. Before our engagement, I made decisions (spending, schedule, etc.) with my own best interest in mind. With the formal commitment from our vows, I shifted to prioritizing what is best for us as partners. So I guess that could be seen as deeper love, but I definitely didn't feel sadness or pressure!
I’m not married myself, but I’ve asked so many of my married friends this question. I was obsessed with finding out the answer! Every single one of them said no!
After our wedding, I did feel a slight change, but it didn’t come from *within* our relationship - we already lived together, had a dog, had a joined life. In the immediate aftermath, any change felt was probably due to the shared experience of feeling so held in love and celebration at our wedding (having tapped into the cosmic force you refer to!).
The more subtle, slow shift was a change in the external factors around our relationship - the way others see and treated our relationship. For better or for worse, people in our society tend to treat a marriage more seriously - the legality of signing forms/medical documents, invitations to parties/weddings/holidays, the way Boomers treat you (lol). When meeting new people in work or formal settings, the role of husband/wife/spouse has certain connotations and is easier to define than the broad term of girlfriend/boyfriend/partner. We were still just us, but I found the world was categorizing us in a new way.
Nothing really changed for us relationship-wise, as we had lived together for 4 years at that point. We also had a teeny tiny Covid wedding so not much planning at that point. However, I had not appreciated how much pressure there would be on having kids immediately post-wedding from others, even though we had been very vocally child-free. I also did not change my name but some relatives still insist on using my husband’s surname 🤷♀️
Honestly, I just felt really joyful post-wedding and the main disappointment was that the long weekend flew by so quickly/we were so strung out from planning that we didn’t anticipate *how* supremely amazing the wedding would be (caveat, things definitely did go wrong, but vibes were immaculate lol). And then, conversely, one day on our honeymoon we had an apex mountain of an argument in-transit so nothing really changed there either lol...in fact it wound up creating space to discuss some hurts we each had with each other from our wedding. So after all of the shiny stuff, we’re still just two human beings doing our best and that’s what sharing life is?
In many ways, I think that being married has just deepened our commitment and made our life together feel sweeter. I did change my name for many reasons and those reasons have only fortified in the last year. We simply don’t know about kids -- I’m a 1989 baby and I’m resolute in not giving in to timeline fear in order to force a decision.
At the end of the day, I think what you’ve said about celebrating the universality of love is deeply profound. And for me, the experience of making public commitment pledges of that love to my now-husband remain the most magical moment of my life. Feeling that magic flourishing and being nurtured through our life together in the years since has some sort of weird alchemy to it. So that feels different simply because that formal forging through our own rite of marriage -- though a secular ceremony -- just means a lot. And though I believe in agnostic forces, I have to say that the ritual of the actual wedding ceremony/experience of blacking out is some strange transformative forces at work. I’ll never forget that and I wish so much that we had more secular rites in our cultures!
I have been married almost 7 years now and never really felt different after getting married. I was somewhat sad/somewhat relieved once the actual wedding was over but I felt no different. I never changed my name and have no intention to and like you we are also child free even though it wasn't by choice. I hope whatever upsetting work news you both received all works out, and you enjoy your first year as husband and wife!