Newlywed Needs Archives

Jun 23 2010

Honeymoon Stage: Is This For Real?

Are you in the honeymoon stage? One of the most exciting new statements in your vocabulary once you are married is, “This is my husband!” After being married, you’ll hang out with couples (both dating and married) and will most-likely hear a lot of, “Oh, you’re still in the honeymoon stage.” This is one of those statements that you don’t necessarily want to hear because you’re not sure how to take it–and what does that mean anyway?

My husband and I have decided after two years of marriage that there is no such thing, and in fact we have grown closer and are even more in love today, than the day we got married! I continue to ponder the concept and meaning of ‘the honeymoon stage’ and guess people may associate it with characteristics such as: a consistent glow or aura of happiness, PDA’s, or classic gentleman moves like opening doors and pulling out your chair. These characteristics are considered to be quite romantic to most women and we ALL want to feel the utmost love and appreciation in our relationship. It is so exciting to see young, married couples that are truly the best of friends and madly in love. It’s even more endearing when you can find this in a couple that have been married for 15, 25, 35+ years, where this love and friendship has continued to grow stronger with time.

So now when people say to my husband and I “You must still be in the honeymoon stage,” I take this as a compliment, as I am happy to hear that others can visibly see the kind of relationship that my husband and I share– and that is something to truly be proud of and smile about no matter what ‘stage’ we may or may not be in!

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Jun 18 2010

M.I.L: Friend or Foe?

Is your M.I.L. friend or foe? Some of you may be still getting used to your new title as a “wife”, and of course with this title comes a few additional responsibilities… some of which you may not have thought of pre-wedding!? You’re married now; which means that you now have another family to be a part of and share your life with! I see this as a blessing, but don’t get me wrong there can also come a few obstacles with your new role in your spouse’s family.

First off, the biggest obstacle (or some may refer to as a battle) is establishing a relationship with… (you guessed it!) your M.I.L., also known as your Mother-In-Law. Establishing and developing this relationship can be a breeze for some of you, and conversation and friendship may be of second nature! For others, the relationship can be walking a fine line!

If your spouse has always held a close friendship or bond with his mother, you may find yourself wanting to take over the reins as the new ‘woman’ in his life, however; it is important to know your role and she will learn to know hers as well. You are his wife now, but his mother is… still his mother! That still doesn’t mean that it’s OK for her to call him every day just to “talk”! If your spouse has always been sort-of-a “momma’s boy” placing distance between the two of them is not going to happen overnight, but it will naturally diminish over time.

The key here is, as it is for most things in married life, communication, and equally important, knowing when to bite your tongue! As long as you and your spouse understand each others’ point-of-view (your feelings and your opinions–because you’re entitled to them), and you also make an effort to understand and respect where your MIL is coming from, the roles in this tripod relationship should be comfortable and non-threatening! Take the first step to open up the lines of communication if you are finding yourself in an awkward situation with your MIL, and show her you want to be her friend more than anything- that will work out in your favor in more ways than one!

At the same time, if you are feeling that some boundaries need to be set, talk about this with your spouse so that you don’t hit your boiling point! As much as you are trying to be #1, and be the best wife possible; know that he already sees you that way…and his mother knows this too. There are always going to be disagreements in marriage and throughout life in general, and you won’t always see eye-to-eye, especially with family members! Be confident in who you are, and show your spouse’s family the fabulous woman that you are!

And remember this, kindness and mutual respect will go a long way as you decide to deem your M.I.L. friend or foe!

Jun 17 2010

Newlyweds: Finding a Healthy Balance

Are you finding a healthy balance in your marriage? Newlyweds love spending time with each other EVERY chance they get and sometimes they are so caught up in the newlywed bliss that they forget to keep in touch with their friends and family. We’ve all done it a time or two, who could blame us: with work, working out, keeping up with our favorite hobbies and TV shows, not to mention the chores at home and let’s not forget cuddle time!

It’s easy to set your relationships with family members and friendships to the side because you’re so consumed with your new life, but remember the people who love you. Some of them may not understand what’s going on (because they’re still single or they’ve been married for years so the ‘newlywed stage’ has long passed). It’s expected that for a few weeks, maybe even months that you and your spouse will be starting your new life together.

During that time you’ll both be getting used to living together (if you haven’t before), going through the dreaded married name-change process, joining bank accounts, even buying a house and moving—simply put, you’re taking care of your business with the idea in mind that as soon as you’re finished you’ll start keeping in touch and hanging out with friends and family again. By that time you may have already offended your friends and may find that not everyone is okay with picking up where you left off a few months ago. Some may even demand an explanation as to why you’ve been a bad friend!

Here are a few tips on how to juggle your time when your new married life begins (after the Honeymoon) so you can avoid hurting your friends and family.

Call your parents at least once per week. Your parents love you more than anything in the world and just want to know what’s going on in your life (especially after you’ve left the nest, think of your poor Mother)! Even if 10-15 minutes is all the time you can spare, just call them and let them know how everything is going. You can even ask them advice (if you need it) and may learn a thing or two (after all, they’ve been married and could offer you valuable tips on how to navigate through the transition of new married life).

Make time for family. Not all families live in the same town or even the same state anymore, so it’s not always possible to make it to Sunday Dinner with your entire family. If you do live near your parents or in-laws (and come from a close-nit family) they will most-likely expect to see you more often. Try your best to visit them at least once per month (together as a couple)–you could save time by inviting both sets of parents to your place for dinner. They will adore seeing you as a hostess/host of a dinner party and you get to use some of the new kitchenware that you received as wedding gifts! If you live out-of-town try to plan a weekend visit every 2-3 months (or as your schedule permits) to catch up with those you love most!

Don’t forget your friends! They’ve been there for you through every up and down in your life–relationships, drunken nights, arguments with your boyfriend/girlfriend, failed exams, your engagement, graduation, job promotion, wedding planning, etc. Some of them may have even put up with your bridezilla moments, so don’t allow yourself to neglect your friendships! After all, eventually you and your spouse will have your first fight as a married couple…and who will you call if you haven’t kept in touch with friends or family? We get it! You and your spouse are totally in-love and want to be together every second of everyday, but you should make time for yourselves too.

Everyone needs ME time to do whatever makes them happy, so call up your best friend and make plans to go shopping, out to dinner, to the gym, out dancing, or for drinks. Believe me, your man loves spending time with you, but will also appreciate time with his buddies for poker night, happy hour, to play video games, to play golf, etc.

So, bottom line; pick up the phone and make plans with your friends and family to lead a more balanced and healthy married life!

Jun 14 2010

Wedding Gifts: Solutions for the Good, the Bad & the Unregistered For

What are the worst wedding gifts you received? This is one of the silly questions that newlyweds discuss while lounging around pools on their honeymoons and when they get home and have to deal with these gifts being in their homes. Here are a few of the truly ridiculous gifts we’ve heard of: a giant ceramic rooster, a custom created ashtray (for a non-smoking couple), a birdbath (for the urbanites) and the best of all….a hand-knitted baby dress for the firstborn child (awkward).
Hopefully you weren’t on the receiving end of a truly tragic wedding gift, but most newlyweds we know have a few items they haven’t used or don’t know what to do with.

Here are a few of the most common non-registry gifts and some ideas on how to use them:

Gift Cards

Okay, so you didn’t register at Walmart. Go shopping in-person or online and splurge on something you wouldn’t typically buy like a grill or cute outdoor accessories. You could also stock up on a year’s worth of items you hate spending money on (like toilet paper or razor blades). Regardless of where they’re from, if you received gift cards, spend them. You’ll feel terrible if a year or two goes by and you have a pile of worthless plastic and have to keep fibbing to friends and family about what you purchased with their gift cards.

Kitchen & Bath Items

Do you have more hand towels and wooden spoons than you know what to do with? If your gifts still have tags on them, you can venture to the store where they were purchased and see if you can exchange them for store credit. Be sure to make your trade as soon after your wedding as possible. This decreases the chance that the items that you’re returning will be on sale or clearance, which would lower their exchange value.

If your gifts are tagless and/or you don’t live near the store they were purchased at it’s time to get creative. Roll up hand towels and place them in a basket in your guest bathroom to add a splash of color and a nice eco-friendly alternative to paper guest towels. You can also use excess cooking utensils and towels to create cute custom house warming baskets for friends and family members when they move. Just be sure not to re-gift the original giver!!

Décor

Did you end up with more photo frames than your house can hold? First, prioritize finding a spot for anything custom engraved and then see what you have left. You can use a multitude of smaller frames to decorate a bare hallway wall. Here’s a great site featuring easy to follow diagrams on frame collage placement.

If you received a hideous gift that you know a relative will look for in your home, you have two options. Tastefully display it in a room you rarely use, or keep it in a closet and pull it out when you know they’ll be visiting.

With all this talk about gifts you didn’t want or register for, it’s important to remember that the person who gave you something…did just that. They went out of their way to buy you something to celebrate your marriage and begin your new life with. As Pierre Corneille said “The manner of giving is worth more than the gift”.

We’d love to hear what your best and worst wedding gifts were and your creative uses for them, so please leave us a comment!

Jun 10 2010

Divvying Up The Newlywed Dirty Work

Newlywed dirty work. What’s that?! Newlywed couples often find themselves arguing over who’s going to take care of the chores in their daily lives. It’s tough when you both work full-time jobs or have opposite schedules to figure out what works best for you as a couple. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed by responsibilities and feel like YOU do it all, but before you rip into your spouse for not pulling his weight around the house think about everything he DOES take care of by making a list.

If your list is completely one sided, it may be time to discuss splitting the household chores ASAP for your own sanity! Some couples are lucky enough to work the same schedule allowing them to partake in chore duty together, even making them fun. If you and your spouse aren’t one of these couples, you can still allocate the chores and get them done on your own time.

Here are some of the most common, laborious chores that couples despise along with a few helpful tips on how to share the burden!

Cooking: One of you could prepare dinner and the other could be in charge of washing the dishes. You could even alternate nights and take turns trying new recipes with each other. One way to keep it interesting is to recipe swap with family members or friends. You may find that you and/or your spouse aren’t cut out to be the next Iron Chef, but that you enjoy cooking and most of all, the time spent learning how to cook together!

Cleaning: It’s best not to leave all the cleaning to one person (lets face it, it’s boring and it’s not fair!) A family member once told me that she kept her house ‘clean enough’ at all times just in case someone stopped by unexpectedly. I remember thinking at the time what wonderful advice that was from a full-time working Mother and it has stuck with me over the years. You don’t want to be embarrassed because you haven’t dusted in weeks or there are dirty dishes piled up in your sink.

So, you should designate a couple of hours one day per week to dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the rooms. It works out best if you divvy up the tasks (and switch from week to week to break up the monotony of your routine). If one day per week seems like too much work for your busy schedule, at least try to keep the rooms that your guests would see spotless and then clean the rest of your house as time permits!

Money: Ugh, bills! Lucky for newlyweds today, we have the option to pay our bills online alleviating us from having to sit down at the kitchen table and manually write out checks to every company–like our parents and grandparents did. However, it’s very common to allow one person to handle the finances leaving the other in the dark as far as where the money goes each month. Be sure that you both know what’s going on when it comes to your finances so that if one of you is out-of-town or unable to take care of the bills, the other one can simply fill-in. It’s easy to miss a payment if you don’t know when it’s due or worse, you don’t know how to access your online banking account to press the payment button!

Laundry: Hand-wash, hot, cold, colors, whites only, wash but don’t dry—with all these instructions who could blame a man for not wanting to voluntarily take on doing the laundry?! Some couples prefer to stick to the “I’ll do mine and you do yours” method, but if you wish to help each other out it is probably best to do it together the first few times. This way you could show your spouse how to separate the colors from the whites and explain what gets washed using what cycle, detergent, etc. This will ultimately (hopefully) keep him from shrinking your favorite shirt into something even Barbie wouldn’t fit into. Not to mention, you could have a make-out session during the spin cycle turning the laundry into something he will surely want to do again!

We’d love to hear your solutions for divvying up newlywed dirty work. Please share in a comment below!