Taking the plunge

From the weddings to marriages--what makes them good? People can go absolutely crazy over an extravagant wedding and do a lot less to prepare for the actual marriage. Transitioning into marriage can be difficult, here two separate people, two separate lives, suddenly become one--or hopefully they do. When two people get married, they've got to figure out lots of things--what traditions they'll follow, who will do what work, how decisions are made and many, many more things.

This week I learned about what can affect marital satisfaction. It was interesting to see the different trends for the level of marital satisfaction. We talked about how children affect marital satisfaction. Apparently the marital satisfaction tends to be rising and rising in the first little while of marriage (no surprise there). And then when the first child comes it tends to decrease slightly. This kind of surprised me--I thought babies were supposed to bring joy and happiness! But we talked about how it is only slightly lower and we discussed things to prevent the satisfaction from declining too significantly! I loved talking about how we should involve the husband (/father) a lot in the pregnancy--let him talk to the belly/baby, bring him to the doctor's visits, pick out baby things together, have him be really involved in the labor, and discuss things that will change once the baby comes. We learned about how too often women use this as a time to bond with other women,  which only ostracizes the husband. In reality, these special times should be shared between husband and wife to bring them closer together and to bond them to each other and to the baby. It's a really important bond we don't want to miss out on! 

Moral of the story, build connections with your spouse and make sure you are creating your own family and talking about how things will change and they'll go much smoother!