How to Survive and Thrive in your First Year of Marriage

The first year of marriage can be so painful that divorce seems like the only escape. That's why more people divorce in the first year of marriage than any other year. But at the same time the first year can also be a couples' best year of marriage.

Incidentally, many women consider affection and conversation are preconditions for sexual fulfillment. If you do not spend much time talking to each other, and being affectionate, then your that your sexual relationship will eventually suffer.

You need to put some time set aside to meet each other's important emotional needs. You should be enthusiastic about what you have planned, because it should give you what you need the most. If either of you think it's a waste of time, it's because you are not meeting each other's needs.

Before you were married, you met each other's emotional needs. And that caused you to fall in love with each other. Unless you continue to do the same thing now, you will lose the feeling of love that makes you think your love is unconditional.

The time you spend now don't need to be exactly what you did before marriage. In fact, you may be able to meet each other's needs without actually "going out."

If you say that your schedules are too busy to get together for dates, then it means that you are making scheduling decisions independently of each other. When you look at your schedules, you find there is no time for dates. But if you were to put the dates in first, and then schedule everything else around them, you would solve your scheduling problem.

You or your partner may also find that the time you spend together on dates does not meet your needs the way it did before marriage. If that's the case, do something different until your needs are met.
The unilateral love or unconditional love lends itself to a lifestyle where one suffers for the happiness of the other. It's easy to get into the habit of living that way, and there are many well-meaning spouses who give unconditionally, only to find themselves repeatedly on the short end of the stick. They begin to think that they are natural "Givers" and their spouses are natural "Takers." But it turns out to be a matter of perspective. If you talk to their spouses, they think they are the givers.

In reaction to unconditional love, it is suggested that you stop being a "care-giver" entirely. You are encouraged to believe in unconditional love - for yourself! Those who follow that advice are headed for divorce, but in most cases, no one thinks the marriage is worth saving anyway.

These marriages are worth saving, and they can be saved, but it requires a new rule that is different from the two we have been discussing. First, review the two unhealthy rules:

1. Unconditional Love for your spouse: Do whatever you can to make your spouse happy and avoid anything that makes your spouse unhappy, even if it makes you unhappy.

2. Unconditional Love for yourself: Do whatever you can to make yourself happy and avoid anything that makes yourself unhappy, even if it makes your spouse unhappy.

The first rule is wrong because it does not take your own feelings into account, and the second rule is wrong because it does not take your spouse's feelings into account.

So there should be a rule that takes the feelings of both you and your spouse into account simultaneously. And it could be that do whatever you can to make you and your spouse happy at the same time, and avoid anything that will make either you or your spouse unhappy.

If one of you wants to do something badly enough, you simply allow it to happen without any objection, and keep following it for the rest of your married lives.