The Transitions In Marriage

The discussion this week was on the importance of the transitions that happen before and after marriage. There are several different transitions that happen: the transition from working closely with our parents to working more with our spouse, one that happens when the first child is born and then when additional children are born and another one when the kids leave.

One of my class discussions was on the importance of the engaged couple being the ones working together to put their wedding together and that leaning on their family can make things harder for them in the long run. One way of leaning on their parents could be letting their parents pay for the majority of their wedding instead of doing it themselves. I know that the culture for weddings is to have a big grandiose party that is very expensive, but a wedding is a celebration and the amount of money put into it is not as important as the people who are being celebrated. Having a huge guest list and using all of the wedding traditions can be overwhelming and in the end, detract from the enjoyment of the actual celebration itself.

A story from my parent’s wedding was that at their reception they did not get a chance to eat because their parents kept having them stand back up to do the greeting line. Because there were so many guests my parents did not have enough time to greet everyone and eat so they did not get to eat anything. This story did not cause any problems, but can show the importance of having the couple decide how they want their wedding to go, even not including some of the traditions that can seem very important, but do not really make or break the reception. It can also show the importance of being the ones in charge of the wedding. In the case of my parent’s story, I do not know who put on the reception, but in some cases, if the parents help pay for a good portion of it they can feel like the newlyweds owe them time or are more demanding then if the couple had paid for most of it themselves. While the couple can feel like they owe whichever set of parents helped the most this help often leads to more stress than actual help. In letting their parents help too much with their wedding reception can not only make them stressed but it does not help them to change how the relationship works with the parents which needs to be done to help them get closer to their spouse.

One of the other hard transitions is growth or the addition of children into a family. Because the woman carries the child their connection is a lot stronger and women also have a tendency to be more nurturing. Because of this even though at this point in their lives when they are likely to be more on the same page then ever, the husband can feel like they are not. A good way to prevent this as shared by my teacher, is if the wife does what she can to make him feel more included in the whole process including during pregnancy.

I think that it is crazy that by doing things that maybe don’t feel natural or are not in keeping with the traditions of this world can be so meaningful to both the husband and wife. Not only that, but it can make their relationship so much stronger if they are willing to work together and find ways to do things that can help them be closer. It is very important for a married couple to work together and to build the bonfires that they need to have the marriage that they want and it is interesting to know that process starters before they say “I do”, but from the moment they decide that they are going to get married.