The First (Year) Is The (Hardest)

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the first year of marriage is the hardest one. Even if you lived together before, marriage brings some subtle little problems with it that you probably didn't have previously. I'm discovering some of these little things as they crop up and in the interest of full disclosure, I'm sharing them with you.

This is the picture that came up when I searched "First year of marriage". Isn't it appropriate???

Obvious changes you knew to expect but somehow didn't (aka slow, creeping changes):

1. You can't just break up. Duh.

E and I have been together for eons and would never break up, but whenever we were having a hissy fit there was always the little voice in the back of my mind saying "HA I COULD SO BREAK UP WITH YOU IF I WANTED TO". Now that we're married, the little voice is saying something more like "HA I COULD...wait....I can't? Shit". It's not that I want to leave my annoying as shit charming hubby, but the pissy fit arguments do seem to mean a little more now that I can't kick him out since, you know he kinda officially lives here. And since we're mostly confined to a single room, there's no where "here" for me to kick him to to get some space. You can't even holler and talk about breaking up because divorce is some scary shit. The result of this? Tonight I ended up sitting in bed with my back to him because there was no where for either of us to go to get space. PATHETIC I tell you, which brings me to...


2. You really, REALLY REALLY need some space

E and I are two VERY stubborn people who enjoy a good argument all the time now and then. It's who we are and we accept each other this way, but damn if it isn't impossible to explain that to someone else. Since we still don't have our own place, I feel like my friggin family people are judging us differently. I want to be able to smack the crap out of E's hands when he's pulling on the back of my hair over and over again to piss me off without worrying about my mother hearing us arguing, judging us and making comments the next day. The same goes for our neighbors who live approximately 2.5 inches away. Not being able to smack E while he yanks my hair and gleefully says "ha ha ha you make it so easy to annoy you!" means I don't get to enjoy blowing off some steam and I stay angry longer. Sitting in the same bed together because there's no where for us to go means he has easy access to my hair to pull/arm to pinch/side to poke. Since he's an "exploder" and I'm a "brooder", I need to blow off some steam or I'll be pissed for 10 hours after he's already gotten over it. He's already over tonight's argument and sleeping soundly while I'm still stewing over it.

3. You get FAT, FAT, FAT.

This one we really should have seen coming. We've both been working our behinds off to get in shape for the wedding and now that it's over it's essentially been a free for all. Since the wedding we've had chinese food, mexican food, ice cream, cookies and cake and holy crapola I feel like a house already. I know you're supposed to enjoy not having the food stress after the wedding but clearly my stomach didn't get the memo that we still need to take day after pictures and that can't happen if we don't fit in our clothes. I really need to get my ass back in gear because I cannot be house sized, I can't even be condo sized and I know it's time for rabbit food again, I just don't like it. Since we live with the fam, I also get daily lectures from my grandma about how I should take E's bags of starburst away because he's starting to look a little thick in his shirts, his buttons look like they're straining and did I know I look like I'm gaining weight?  She wasn't going to say anything (HA) but I really look like I'm packing on the pounds and she's only saying something because she cares but I should really do something about that weight... Ugh UGH UGH.

And finally for the BIG one...

4. Money makes everything harder

Even though E and I have lived together for forever, we've never shared bank accounts before. While we like sharing accounts and it definitely feels like we're working towards a common goal, it also means we're paying "each other's bills". This is new territory for us, we're up in each other's business like never before, and money is a sensitive topic when you don't have a lot of it. I think we're also still getting used to "being in it together". Marriage doesn't seem to have a "support each other switch". For example, when you have a baby with someone there's a little person you're both financially responsible for, tangible living proof that you're jointly connected. You can't exactly argue over one person not paying for their half of the diapers because hey, the kid needs diapers. But when you're married there's no tangible proof of togetherness. Sure you love each other and have this piece of paper that says you now support each other but those aren't your bills and this is your check so fuck this together shit.

Even though the wedding is over, I still have hundreds of dollars of wedding related bills on my credit card to pay off. I pretty much paid for everything "we" bought for the wedding (except our rings) when I should have been asking E to pay for half upfront all along. I assumed since we were combining accounts at the end it wouldn't matter who paid for it now. This assumption was true, but it means that I've been wracking up (and paying off completely, I've never not paid a bill in it's entirety. I think I might die if that happened) over $1000 of credit card debt EVERY month and E has never paid a credit card bill higher than 200 dollars in food. Since my bill closes half way through the month, the last of the wedding stuff is being paid for this month and even though I was desperately longingly praying hoping that he'd be mature and see that I'd been forking over dough every month for US for a year, all he sees is that his paycheck is already spent. Never mind that I contributed significantly more to both our checking and savings accounts, he's the one that's worked hard (which he has) to bring in checks this month so he feels like he's paying the bill alone. This makes me want to bang my head (or his) against the wall since I've been working my ass off to pay for everything FOR A YEAR and he gets ONE MONTH and complains. Clearly I am not done being upset about this. He also eats out Every.Single.Time he works which is adding up to a small fortune but now I'm just being petty.

5. You will go to bed mad as shit angry

I remember discussing the advice "don't go to bed angry" with our rabbi during the last meeting E and I had before getting married. We were explaining that even if we were too angry to look at each other we still shared the same bed every night but couldn't manage to swing the not going to bed angry at each other part. He laughed and said if no one went to bed angry we'd never get any sleep and concluded that sleeping on an argument was likely to give everyone a little perspective anyway. He was right.

In the interest of our marital sanity I'm going to end this here and go take a shower or something. I neglected to mention earlier that the main water line under our house burst into a giant lake'o'poo so the plumbers will be here at 8am to turn off the water for a few days. I've got to get some water in while I still can.


The shower ended up being too noisy for 3am, re: living with the fam. Instead, we had to wake up and hop in the shower before the plumbers got here at 9 which wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been up until 3:30!