Sneak Peek: The Biggest Surprise I've Had in Marriage To-Date ...
... Transitions.
What kind of transitions, you ask? Everything ... the good transitions (a new job), the unexpected transitions (man, do we have a ton of clothes that have to get washed), and the hard transitions (losing loved ones unexpectedly).
Marriage amplifies the impact of transitions - both the ones that you were prepared for and the ones that you weren't. I wasn't surprised that there were transitions, but I was surprised about the impact that we felt when transitions occurred - especially the good ones.
Transitions in Real Life: Our Experience
One really good transition that left my wife and me with more to manage than we initially expected began when we both started working at new jobs. My new role meant a longer daily commute with more out-of-state travel; her new role meant working nights and alternate weekends and making really tough calls to ensure the health and safety of her clients. To put it simply, more and more difficult kinds of work.
That work required us to shift. We needed to shift household chores, time with friends and family, time with one another, and find ways to get more activities for our self-care in the mix. While I am writing in the past tense, this is work that is still quite active for us - some weeks we get it right; other weeks we give each other some grace and pick up the slack, where necessary.
Wisdom for Your Journey
Your marriage will be what you make it. Every couple's journey is different and there are few, if any, shortcuts through the transitions that you will experience in marriage. Even welcome transitions need to be embraced with wisdom so that they add more value than they might take away.
For us, that source of wisdom came from multiple places: individual prayer and reflection, conversations with one another, periodic conversations with friends, and resources that we read.
What is that source of wisdom for you?
A Resource to Consider
If you don't quite have an answer to that question, you could start with some of the ones we tried. In fact, Winning Marriage has created a resource that gets right to the heart of the matter,
In It to Win It: A Guy's Guide to the First Years of Marriage.
In It to Win It highlights 7 areas that couples that want to win at marriage should consider focusing their attention on.
Transitions
Sex
Finances
Communication
Managing/Maintaining Friendships
Navigating Family
Self-Care
Something You Can Use Right Now
Are you working through a moment of transition in your relationship or just curious about what some of those transitions might be? Take a sneak peek by clicking the following link to download a FREE CHAPTER of the book.
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Leopold A. Kimo Richardson is the founder of www.WinningMarriage.org, a relationship site for men, focused on helping them to win at marriage. Check out Kimo's latest book, "In It to Win It: A Guy's Guide to the First Years of Marriage." Find the book here.