If you’re busy planning your spring or summer nuptials and hoping for imminent matrimonial bliss, please, don’t let me stop you. But let these gentle rules, cobbled together from an array of contented couples, be my gift to you. They’re almost as good as lilacs and much longer lasting. Continued from Part 1 …
#4: You Can’t Be Everything to Each Other
That includes friends, family and romantic turn-ons. If in the whirlwind of romance, you’ve ignored your friends, those women who have stood by you for years, then reach out to them now and renew your bonds. You’ll need them more than you know in the years to come. They’re the ones who will keep you sane if and when marriage becomes exasperating or bumpy. And even everything is peachy, you still need the respite and perspective of friends. Likewise, appreciate your partner’s friends. While I’m not always excited for Andrew to go play music with his buddies on the weekend—what about mowing the lawn or putting in a new floor in the kitchen?—I do appreciate the much more relaxed guy I get at the end of a jam session. It’s like free therapy!
Don’t forget family ties either. Everything scrambles and shifts when you get married (ditto after you have a baby). It’s an unspoken rule that families relate to one another based on a specific hierarchy and when that is changed in any way, age-old ways of treating one another shift, too. Think tectonic plates. Your new partner may seem like all the family you need now, especially if things are awkward with your birth family. It’s easy to not call home as frequently, much less go home. But your family, those people who watched you go from adorable to awkward to brilliant, are not going away. Nor is his. So figure out how best to merge your families.
Finally, and this is the hardest for many of us to fathom at the newlywed stage, your beau will not be the only and final turn-on in your life. Your head will spin at the sight or thought other men. Your heart may even swoon. Yes, there will be George Clooney and other untouchables, but there will also be the cute barrista and the nice mechanic and the smart co-worker. While attractions or even full-blown crushes after marriage can be pretty unsettling, they don’t need to signify anything beyond your humanity. You are a sexual being sharing the planet with a bunch of other sexual beings. Try to channel the energy from these rogue attractions back into the marriage. It’s an art form, for certain, but once you’ve mastered it, you can feel confident that you and your partner are together with a capital “T.”
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