Reflections - The Top 3 Things I Learned During Year 1 of Marriage

The better part of 2014 was spent navigating our first year of marriage and, now that 2014 has come to a close, I felt it was a perfect time to reflect upon what I feel I have learned over our first year.  

Here we are on our wedding day |in case the white dress thing didn't give it away|, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, unsure of what this whole "marriage" thing was all about. 

Now, here we are at our 1 year anniversary photo shoot |still trying to convince my mom that those are a "photography thing"|. 

I know what you are thinking... wow... they look so much wiser, more mature, certified marriage experts!  Ha.  We wish.  We certainly don't claim to be experts, we certainly have so much more to figure out |like what happens when kids come into the mix, & what happens when our house is no longer a 700 square foot apartment that can be vacuumed in 4 minutes flat?| and we certainly screw this marriage thing up on a fairly regular basis.  However, we can say "marriage" is something we get a tiny bit more than those younger, fancier versions of ourselves in the first picture.  

If I had the opportunity to share what I know about marriage now, with the wedding day version of myself so that she had even a small window into the world of marriage these are the 3 things I would share with her |and with you too if you feel like reading :)|.

1. Marriage is something you just can't "get" until you're in it

I know, I know, this one already contradicts my list of things I "get" that I want to share but... it is so true.  Every bride wants to organize, plan, and orchestrate their perfect wedding and often times you have resources to help you do just that - wedding planners, magazines, Pinterest |thank God for Pinterest I don't know how people planned weddings before it was created, for real|. However, there is no guide or series of checklists that can prep you for what comes after the wedding.  Brady and I are lucky enough to have a counselor who we see on a regular basis.  She walked us through many of the "big ticket" marriage items prior to the big day - budgeting, lifestyle choices, etc.  We aligned on mostly all of them.  We walked out of those sessions feeling like we had this marriage thing down.  Game - set - match.  

But, once we crammed our two lives into one small |eh hem... "cozy". But look at it with our treeee. Eeee!| apartment all of those check boxes
we ticked while paying our hourly rate simply didn't matter.Who cared what our views on 401k's were if we couldn't navigate who would wash the dishes and who would dry?  Marriage is just like anything else, it takes practice and dedication.  I truly believe we are better at marriage today than we were on that first night because we have a year's worth of experience.  We have had more exposure to life's messes together and life's joys together - we have learned that sometimes in the peaks and valleys of life things don't fall into a row of neat boxes to cross off.  So, instead of obsessively prepping and preparing put down the color-coordinated planner and wedding guide book, you can't plan your life like you do a wedding.

2. Don't compare yours to other marriages
Those of you who have read my blog previously know that I often struggle with the desire to be perfect and one of the biggest things that feeds into that is my frequent comparison of my life to others.  That was hard enough to navigate when I was the only one involved in the comparisons but, after we got married my husband got pulled into the mix and that, well that, just isn't fair.  I know how detrimental it can be to live under that microscope |it's like those awful mirrors that magnify your face 70 x's - no one needs to see themselves like that!|  and soon enough I discovered how destructive it was to my husband and the bond we have.  Wedding day me, your marriage will look different than others, present itself differently than others, and will function differently than others and that is ok.  And that is right.  My Father in heaven knows my heart and he knew just the man he needed to form to match that heart and that man is now my husband, how cool is that?!  But putting our marriage on a balancing scale, adding and subtracting "weight" based on how I felt we did or did not live up to the images of marriage I saw on my Instagram feed, or people we saw in the grocery store, was not only destructive, it was wrong.

In that white wedding dress I vowed to protect and guard our marriage from darkness and one of the
best ways for me to bring light to our marriage is to celebrate what makes us, us.  For example, we may be dirt broke right now, up to our ears in Nursing School loans, but that is us! I can choose to see couples vacationing all over the world and begin that nasty comparison game or, I can choose to see the loving, dedicated man who comes home to me every night after making a selfless choice: to work and go to school, so he can follow his passion and provide for our future family. I choose to see the latter. I choose us over comparison.

3. Marriage will change you for the better if you let it
One of the greatest things there is about marriage is that there is
always someone there |unless you are trying to watch the Bachelor in peace and your husband continues to provide play-by-play commentary|.  The "always there" thing is really great when things are going well.  However, that "always there" thing can be a bit unnerving when your spouse is calling you out on your "shtuff".  Brady is phenomenal at gently guiding me back to a life that reflects love and kindness on those days when not a single bone in my body feels an ounce of those things.

For example, look at this really flattering picture he took of me while I was so un-lovingly and un-kindly ranting about how he "never, ever brings his tupperware home from work and now we have literally nooooo tupperware left. OH MY GOSH!!"  Really, my world was ending.  And really, my world had no reason to be ending.  It was just me in one of my type-A, food storage rages. |On a side note, I should stop scowling like that... wrinkles? And Brady should stop taking pictures of me while I am scowling like that|.

Brady has so many endearing qualities, one of which is that he is the furthest thing from type-A and literally would bring his lunch in his cupped hands if that was allowed. I truly think one of the reasons why God created marriage is to put us with people who make us the best version of us possible.  If He matched me with someone who organizes things by size, faints in any moment they feel out of control, and believes that having more than 32 emails in their inbox at a time is stressful, that relationship would explode - explode in a very organized fashion but, explode nonetheless.  It would be easy to get defensive when Brady reminds me to unclench the tupperware and to take a deep breath, claiming I am entitled to my frustration, or, I can lay down the containers and be thankful that marriage transforms us if we let it.

There are so many more lessons I have learned, and so many more we will encounter in years to come.  The greatest lesson of all, that I would share with that veiled, butterfly-stomached girl on that warm November day is that marriage is so much more than that day, it is about growth, and laughter, and friendship. And it is the coolest thing. ever.

|All you married folks, what have you learned through your days, months, and years together?| |If you could go back, what would you say to you on that big day?|

Hugs & "-ish"

Jessica Van Dyke

Photo Credit: Virginia Stiles Photography // Check out her phenomenal photography, and all of the hilarious and authentic stories that go along with it, at her blog here!