You just got married.  Everything is blissfully wonderful.  The Honeymoon was great, but now it is time to settle down into every day life.  The cynics would claim “It’s all downhill from here.” Is that true?  I guess it depends on your expectations for marriage.  If you are hoping to live life with butterflies swirling in your stomach, a twitter pated mind, and heated passion all in daily doses, then the critics are right.  It is all downhill from here.  Those kinds of feelings are possible and good in a marriage, but don’t continue at a honeymoon rate.  I think that is a good thing.  Feeling that way is consuming and exhausting.  It doesn’t give much room for jobs, chores, kids, etc.  Despite that, I hope that you can see that it is all uphill from here.  The rest of your marriage is an amazing opportunity for growth individually and together.  Your marriage can become something steady that brings your much comfort in a crazy world.

If we go into marriage with realistic ideas about marriage the transitions we go through from honeymoon to everyday life and everyday life to life with kids can be something we are prepared for.  Everyone goes into marriage with private contracts.  A private contract involves the assumptions that each makes about the nature of the relationships and their mutual obligations (Lauer & Lauer, Getting married).  It is important that you realize this.  Since you and your spouse will come to the marriage with assumptions that were never talked about, it will be important for you to be ready to negotiate.

 The more you know each other before marriage and really talk, the less likely these assumptions are about really weighty matters, but there is never a guarantee.  Sometimes things come up that we never thought to even talk about. Also, we are always changing so our opinions are likely to change sometimes too.  Maybe you and your spouse talked about who would work and provide for the family, or when to have children, and how many.  Can you see where this is headed?  The two of you decided that both of you could work but that you would like to have children as well.  Maybe the conversation didn’t go much deeper than that.  You are a year or two into marriage and talk of children comes up. What assumptions might show up?  Maybe the husband expects that the wife will leave here just starting career for the next 5-20 years to bear and raise the children.  Maybe the wife assumes they will wait a few more years before having children so she can enjoy building her career a little longer.  Maybe the wife expects that she will bear children, but that here husband will stay home with them because she has a more lucrative career.

While this conflict can be difficult to negotiate, the opportunity to work together has potential to strengthen the marriage. We know from scripture that we could have no joy if we knew no misery (2 Nephi 2:23).  Conflict and struggle in our marriage give us opportunities to make choices that lead to our greatest joy.  As we negotiate life’s decisions as a couple and with the help of our Heavenly Father, we come to an agreement on how to proceed together, we develop more cohesion in our relationship, our marriage gains strength, and it becomes the steady institution we can rely on throughout the years.

We will have a multitude of big and small opportunities to negotiate through our private contracts or assumptions as a couple.  I hope you can see the blessings that are available through consistent effort to work together.  It takes a lot of commitment to your spouse and to God, but it is so worth it!