Two Things No Newlywed Wants to Hear

Sarafina Bianco believes there are a couple of things you shouldn’t say to newlyweds. 

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Between birthday parties, baby showers, and wedding festivities, my husband and I have spent the better portion of our first two months of marriage celebrating other people. While that sounds exhausting, we all do it. Summers are notoriously consumed by celebrations. I’m not upset about it at all. In fact, it’s almost impossible to go into each activity without thinking about our life together: reminiscing about our own wedding or planning our future. It’s been stupid fun (that’s a lot for anyone who doesn’t speak my language).

Here’s the best part of our marriage: we waited until we were ready, unwilling to listen to what others said we should or shouldn’t do. Why? Because we’re both 31, we’ve both dated enough that we knew what we wanted and didn’t, and we’ve been to enough weddings to—again—make our own choices.

There’s one thing, though, that I didn’t anticipate happening after we said, “I do.” I’ve found it to be one of the more bothersome problems we’ve faced in our two months of bliss. This nagging, mood-altering problem, this blemish on my new life? Older married couples.

Yep, I know I just pissed off a good majority of you. Hear me out.

The things you say to young people, often times in an attempt to be nostalgic are sometimes downright judgmental and pessimistic. Don’t believe me? Here are the top two things you say to us, that I wish I wouldn’t ever hear again.

1. “You won’t feel that way in a year.”

Joe and I will be standing off to the side, his arm wrapped around me and my head on his chest, quietly enjoying the celebration (whatever it might be) and sure-as-shit someone will say, “you won’t be doing that in a year.”

“Give it five,” one man said, “you won’t even want to be in the same room.” And while that might be true in his relationship, it doesn’t mean it has to be true in mine. In fact, his comment is less about me and my relationship than it is about his own thoughts and feelings about his marriage. Why then, should we be subjected to every married person’s opinions about what a marriage looks like through life? It’s not helpful to anyone.

It’s like a co-worker who’s been on the job longer coming up to you and offering tips, even if you didn’t ask: unless you’re genuinely trying to be helpful or encouraging, you actually just come off as a tool bag.

Sure, there are those of you who are throwing up the flags about what I’ve said. “Lighten up, dear,” said before you roll your eyes and walk away from my ignorance. And that’s okay, but it’s also okay for me to want to live in my happiness for as long as I can. To expect that we’ll keep holding hands and spooning until we choose not to or until we’re too old for it to be comfortable, whenever that might be.

2.  “Marriage changes everything.”

But it doesn’t if you don’t want it to. While some people, especially younger couples, deal with transitioning between single and married life, some of us are pretty content with living and letting live. When I’m asked how married life is treating me, I almost always respond with, “just like single life did.” It’s true, too. We’re just as happy, adjusted, and independent now as we were before our June wedding. While I realize there hasn’t been a whole lot of life happening between then and now, I suspect we’ll handle it the same way we did before then: as a team. If I gave you my rap sheet of the life events I dealt with before marriage, we could sit here all day. My now-husband was there to help me through some of the darkest days of my life. Am I ignorant to the fact that more are coming? No. Does that mean our contractual obligation to one another changes anything other than the legality of our relationship? Nope.

Marriage doesn’t change everything. It changes some things: for better or worse, but not everything. It’s so dramatic and disingenuous to say, and I think the younger married couples believe it, putting more pressure on their own relationship than necessary.

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While none of these things are deal-breakers or argument starters, they are a constant in our lives right now, and we often laugh about them behind closed doors. “Can you believe so-and-so said that to us, babe?” he’ll say, his arms wrapped around me once again, as I press my lips into his chest. I always respond, “Yes,” before pressing into the man I love the way I want to today. Maybe it won’t be the same a month or year from now, and that’s okay, but there’s no sense in ruining our time together now, because somebody else thinks they know what’s ahead for us.

Photo—Ruth Hartnup/Flickr