The Marriage Stage I’d Never Want to Relive

Oh that honeymoon / newlywed bliss. Right?

It’s supposed to be so blissful, you are just carefree and playing house. The new wife getting so excited about cooking dinner for her new husband. You hear “honeymoon phase” and think it’s all rainbows and sunshine, but that wasn’t our experience.

No that newlywed phase was wrought with awkwardness, arguing, and not knowing how to deal with each other’s families.

Whoever called it bliss clearly dated for a decade and worked out all the kinks before they landed themselves down the aisle, because like I said …  that was not the case for us.

I spent the first several years of marriage with my foot in my mouth.

My sense of humor made it look like I didn’t like my husband, at least people new to meeting me got that vibe. I still have to be very aware to not make him the butt of my jokes; it just doesn’t show love or respect.

I mentioned the in-law situation, didn’t I? Yeah, two people from vastly different backgrounds who dated a short period a time before getting engaged didn’t exactly have time to work out how they’d handle that situation. I wasn’t great at handling his people, I’m sure he was annoyed with mine. I felt like I did nothing right and everyone wanted me to fail … and hated me. Oh, did I think everyone hated me.

Turned out, if doesn’t matter what everyone thought or thinks about me, what mattered was just my marriage. The rest was noise.

Then there’s that awkwardness of not really jiving with each other. “Remember how you like ______?” “I don’t like that.” You know the convo, the ones you had in front of other people when you were trying to look like you’d been married forever. They just made you look dumber. Yeah, I’m glad that passed.

Lucky for me, I never had to get use to decorating another way. I knew plenty of girls who had husbands with an opinion. Mine lands in the category of being happy as long as the bills are paid and there’s food to eat. So I made sure that early on when he was still googly eyed at me to tell him … and I quote “You are going to die in floral bed sheets, just know that right now.”

So since then our biggest issues have been couch pillow differences … feather or that square concrete I can’t stand. Or the one I’ll go to my grave defending … that couch the dogs tore up and now it looks like it has been through as severe of a situation as a couch could put itself into. But those fall more into the category of “I told you so” even though he never actually told me anything. Sometimes trying to save money bites you in the butt.

There are also the newlywed fights that, as my mother would say, “when we would have wanted to get divorced, we were too broke to afford it” or in other words “only Jesus is keeping me married to you right now.”

So yeah, all that to say the “honeymoon phase” is for the birds. I’d much rather have this nearly a decade stage where everything just jives. We still fuss, but it’s once in a blue moon. We understand each other much better and very little has to be spoken. I know his people, and he knows mine, so there isn’t quite the foot in mouth there once was. The icing on the cake … having babies later than most friends. Had we not waited to work out our marriage kinks, I don’t think the kid thing would be as smooth sailing as it is.

So who else is with me? I’d rather take the old married part of life over the newlywed stage any ole day.

Emily Babb
Emily, originally from North Louisiana, lives with her husband Jeremy and sons Harrison & Elliot in New Iberia. She's an elementary teacher by day and blogger by night at her personal blog Louisiana Bride. She began blogging to document planning her wedding and has since moved to sharing recipes, meal planning ideas, and the humor in daily life. Emily enjoys yoga, gardening, camping, and is a closet hippie. When she isn't having a toddler crawl all over her while she attempts to workout while simultaneously cooking dinner, you can find her reading a good book or watching old BBC documentaries on YouTube. She use to be cool, but somewhere in adulthood all those concerts quit happening and a mini van showed up in the driveway.