Aboutweddings.com bride & groom communication article: transition / from

Thirty-two-year-old Kathleen works at a busy law firm. She's used to staying late at the office and coming home to order pizza or munch on whatever's in the fridge. When she married Erik a year ago, though, things changed.

"I can't just work as long as I want to and come home to eat whatever I feel like," she says. "Erik and I agree that sitting down and having dinner together is a priority for us. But sometimes I'd still like to be able to just have ice cream for dinner like I used to!"

Kathleen's story is common among newlyweds. When you go from a single person ("me") to half of a married couple ("we"), you also shift from thinking only of yourself to considering someone else's feelings, desires, and preferences. Some conflicts during this period are natural. But don't worry - you can blissfully coexist with your new husband as long as you're willing to accommodate each other. The key is compromise.

Leslie Parrott, family therapist and co-author of books including Getting Ready for the Wedding (Zondervan-Harper Collins, 1998) and Relationships (Zondervan-Harper Collins, 1998), says that making the transition from thinking only of "me" to "we" is challenging for most couples. 'It is definitely a difficult one because we are so shaped by our families of origin," she explains. "Yet we don't have a clue how deeply they've impacted us until we move into marriage and the myths that our families created for us about marriage become really clear," she says. These "myths" are the unspoken rules about life that we've picked up from our families. We may not have realized that we even have these rules-until our partner breaks one.

Does the way he drops his towel on the bathroom floor drive you nuts? Have you argued about something as insignificant as whether the toilet paper should roll "over" or "under?" Find yourself wishing that he was more like-well, more like you? Disagreements about both inconsequential things and larger issues are normal, too.

"You may disagree on everything from the proverbial how you squeeze the toothpaste tube to how you park the car to how you celebrate Christmas," says Leslie's co-author and husband, clinical psychologist Les Parrott, "to more meaningful things like who's in charge of the money and how is the money spent."

"We all have individual preferences of the simplest things," agrees Leslie. "You may have conflicts over the simplest life tasks like going to the bank and the grocery store." One of the reasons these conflicts are surprising, she says, is that you may not have realized how strongly you feel about doing "life tasks" a certain way. Each of us tends to assume that our way is "the right way."

And it can be difficult to give up your independence and suddenly have someone else to consider. "The loss of that autonomy is an incredible thing," says Leslie, who offers an example of a man who had considered becoming a monk but later married. "He was shockingly startled by the loss of autonomy and personal choice. He said he felt like there was a tree growing in the living room and every time he had to do anything, he ran into it. That's what marriage was like for him."

"One of the hardest things about the first year of marriage is realizing that someone else is always going to be concerned about where you make a lot of plans after work on the spur of the moment, but I had to start thinking about Matt, too. That was quite a change."

Another adjustment stems from the fact that when you're married, you tend to relax and be yourselves with each other. While this kind of intimacy is what marriage is all about, it can also be disconcerting to find that your husband isn't quite the person you thought he was. "There's kind of a pseudo-relationship created in a lot of instances [when couples are dating]," says Les, "and once we cross that proverbial threshold, it's almost like the real person shows through."

You and your husband can stay close during this period of transition by keeping each other's feelings in mind. "The number one thing that's important can be said in a single word-empathy. That capacity to see life from your partner's perspective and understand what it must be like to move in your partner's skin is essential," says Les. "The more we do that, the more we move from individuals to being soul mates, and that takes practice."

It helps to talk to your new husband about how you each describe loving behavior. It's interesting that people define love very differently. For one person, love means running errands together while another doesn't think of that at all," says Leslie. "Making an effort to learn what your partner identifies as loving helps you move away from being self-centered."

Finally, you each have to be able to compromise. Does it really matter if he folds towels in halves, not thirds? Maybe he'll offer to cook more often if you do the dishes. Agree to spend time with each spouse's families and friends. By keeping each other in mind-as you make day-to-day decisions and more major ones-you'll gradually move from "me" to "we." And that's what marriage is about.

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