Secrets of a Newlywed: Make Your Marriage a Priority

This is the next post in Secrets of a Newlywed, a series where I and a handful of other bloggers open up and share some of the lessons, insights and understandings—the little secrets—that have strengthened our marriages. (To read through all the posts in this series, click here.)  

Today, I am happy to share this guest post with you from Brittany:

My husband and I had been married a year and a half when we had our first child. Up until that point, we had what I considered to be a good marriage. Minimal arguments, alot of laughter, and respect for one another. And then we had our son.

Let me first say that our son is the biggest, most wonderful blessing in our lives. The love we have for him is unmeasurable. But, having him in our lives was initially a big change. It shook our marriage up quite a bit. Looking back, it was a blessing in disguise.

Soon after becoming parents, I had thoughts about my husband that I'd never had before. And they weren't good thoughts. They were thoughts of resentment for silly things, like getting more sleep than me. There were thoughts of anger towards him. There were thoughts of criticism. And frustration. And I could tell he was thinking the same things about me. And instead of talking about it, we swept it under the rug, often because we were too tired or too frustrated to deal with each other.

We were dealing with a big change, so we often snapped at each other and intentionally said hurtful things to one another. One night, four months later, we had an argument and I broke down. I cried and confessed to my husband all of the bad feelings I had towards him. He told me he that he often felt the same way towards me. We talked about our situation and wondered how we let it get to this point.

We realized that over the course of experiencing a major, life-changing event, and becoming parents, that we were completely neglecting each other. Although we had little time to spend together during that time, we weren't taking advantage of the time we did have. We weren't trying. We weren't working. We were taking the easy route. We said we were too tired to go out to a movie. Or we were too busy to have a quiet dinner alone. Each time we turned down an opportunity to spend time together, we unknowingly pushed each other further away.

You get out of a marriage what you put in to a marriage. Life is going to throw unexpected twists, turns, and surprises (a new baby!). If you are not putting any effort in to your marriage, don't expect anything out of it. As with anything in life, you've got to work hard to make it good. Marriage is no different. As a newlywed, I'm learning that there are going to be many ups and downs and blessings along the way in our marriage. No matter what happens, it all began with me and my husband. We need to always make time to cherish and nourish that relationship.

I feel that we are more strengthened and renewed after going through this change. We learned a great deal about our marriage. We learned how crucial communication is and we also learned that how important it is to invest in each other. Most importantly, we learned that God must always be at the center of the relationship. If you place God on the backburner, everything else becomes muddy and messy. My husband and I spent much time in prayer together and worked to put God at the center of our marriage again.

My husband has always said in order to build better relationships, you must invest your time. I'm working everyday to invest more of my time in what matters the most: my Savior and my family.

Brittany and her husband were married in May 2009, and have one son. Brittany blogs about her adventures as a new wife and mom on her blog, The Rookie Years.

If you are interested in sharing a lesson from your own marriage, please get in touch for details about guest-posting in this series!

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