Complaining that the first year of marriage is hard isn’t particularly groundbreaking, but I found this idea from Lindsey Capperrune’s story at The Good Women Project insightful:
As if marriage is the start of it all. It’s a fallacy that life begins there and everything prior to the vows evaporates suddenly. I’m not sure why exactly; maybe we want it to be that way, or we know it’d be easier that way. Maybe because we want to be the only life our new spouse has ever known, but the truth is life begins before “I do.”
You bring your family, your norms and values, your “we’ve always done it” ways and you marry a person who just happens to have those ways too and you collide. You find yourself wondering, “Why does he do it like that?! Why does the garbage sit there in a bag by the back door? Why does he fold his underwear?”
And things he probably asked of me: Why are we having cupcakes for dinner? And why do you steal the covers every. single. night?