June 2009 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
s/o anniversaries
Since we're approaching our anniversaries, let's get introspective.
What has been really easy to adjust to in this first year of marriage? What has been something difficult you've had to handle?
Do you agree with the old saying that the first year of marriage is the hardest?
Re: s/o anniversaries
I feel like M and I have been together for so long that nothing really feels that different. I guess it's easy to look at our joint account and see the balances we have together. We both kept our single accounts as well and mainly use those. We haven't had any major or difficult things come up. The only difficult one was I am going to Germany and he cannot b/c he doesn't have enough time on the books with the other trips we have planned this year.
I thought the first year was the honeymoon year!
I dont really feel like much changed but this has been a tough year for us because I feel like I'm stuck until DH finds out where we are moving to for his job. When he started the job in March 2008 we were planning on moving in summer 2009. Then that got pushed back with the economy being so bad and we didnt want to sell the house/look for a new job. Then it was spring 2010, not its August 2010. I'm about to go insane because I dont know how much longer I can deal with my job/boss and I'm to the point where I'm so over my house because I'm just ready to move (even though there really isnt any major issue).
Before the wedding, I think the wedding was enough of a distraction that a lot of this stuff didnt bother me. Once the wedding was over, I got really bored.Add all that to some health issues and its been a tough year for me emotionally/mentally.
My ILs also drive me crazy and since they know we are potentially moving, they are really pushy about certain things and extra clingy with DH since they seem to be afraid he will never talk to them or something if he moves out of town. So I sorta want to shoot FIL most of the time.
So we didnt really have the hard first year of marriage because of the traditional adjustment period but we had a tough year because of some of the extenuating circumstances.
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DH & I didn't live together before we were married. We both thought it was easy to combine our lives together. He and I were both worried about it, but we were also together for 7 years before marrying. Probably the most difficult for us was he doesn't like that I get up at 5am for my job, when he still has 2-3 more hours to sleep. I don;t like that he puts the dishes in top of the dishwasher and not in it. Why???? I think these are normal minor issues though and we talk through everything.
I don't agree with that saying as we've had a great first year of marriage. Now when baby comes and we start on our second year...I think that will be hard : )
For us, I think the difficulties are obvious -- being bicoastal. Mike's been in the military for 10 years, but hasn't really gone anywhere since 2003 so we'd gotten really spoiled as far as the military "lifestyle" goes. The training that he was in from Oct-Feb, where he was 50 miles north of our home and coming back on the weekends was the most difficult, even moreso than living on opposite coasts, because of the nature and demands of the program. He'd always wanted to be special forces though, so this decision was one that we both thought long and hard about and were both fully aware of the sacrifice involved. So far, it's been worth it. For him, knowing that I'd sacrifice SO much to support his dreams, has been really eye opening and it's transformed him into a completely different person where I'm concerned. Even though we don't live together or see each other often right now, we're closer and more in love than we've ever been.
Although it's tough living apart, the closeness that this situation has given us is almost better than the "normal" feeling of being together that we've had the last 8 years, and the first 4 months of being married.
I think the hardest thing for us was really getting used to each other schedules. I wasn't used to so much down time/alone time. I eventually found ways to spend my time, even if I do get bored once in a while.
I don't think this year was very hard at all to be honest. It was actually probably easier.
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Really? Is this because you had a system that worked for you? Or do you have lawyer reasons to avoid?
It was such a pain to keep ours separate that we couldn't wait to combine (but did until after we were married).
Lucy Elizabeth 10.27.12
DH and I dated 8 years before we got married, and didnt live together before our wedding either. So really, the adjustment for us was just living together and getting into a set routine and schedule with things once we were on our own. The only other real struggle for us was that I had ankle surgery the end of February and I am still recovering from that... so that was a struggle not being able to really enjoy some things like we would have wanted to.
I dont necessarily think the first year is the hardest... I loved it. Its just getting used to a new life and getting set financially. We havent combined our finances yet, which is something I want to do next as that can be an incovenience.
We didn't combine our finances because we have been living together for a few years and had a system worked out.
Because we lived together for a few years there weren't too many adjustments to make. The biggest thing has been dealing with our families.
Long story short, MIL treated DH horribly as a child and kicked him out while he was in jr. high. I'm not saying DH was perfect but MIL basically just gave up on being a mother. Over the past 10 or so years they have been working on their relationship but it has been mostly DH giving and MIL throwing fits. She feels now that she should be able to control any aspect of his life that she wants and she will harass him (multiple screaming calls a week) until he finally gets fed up and tells her what she wants to hear. He is tired of it but is scared to cause another rift in the relationship so he just backs down.
He and I have had many conversations about this because I won't give in. Sometimes tough love and tough conversations are necessary and she needs to know that it is not ok for her to manipulate her son. She had her chance to raise him and be a part of his life and she gave that up years ago. He's willing to give her a second chance and I support him in that but she needs to acknowledge that he is an adult, she missed out on a lot of things as a result of her actions, and make some effort to rebuild the relationship.
DH sees my family and it tears him apart sometimes because we are very open in our conversations. We yell and scream and fight but we know where we stand with everyone and have better relationships as a result. Each person is accountable for being a part of the family. I'm a little nervous because after the past few weeks, I am about to snap at MIL and I guarantee there will be tears. (She cried when I told her she couldn't bring frozen rice pilaf on a 8 hr. car ride and then serve it at the rehersal dinner!) We'll see how things go the next time we go up to visit!
No lawyer-ly reason
Our system worked. We have access to each other's accounts when necessary and we're at the same credit union, we can easily transfer to each other if needed. But we were just too independent for too long to change things.
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I'm just surprised so many of you have still kept your finances separate. I understand if you already have a good system, but it still seems like more work to make sure of who pays what bill.
Both of our paychecks go to the same account and DH has taken over the money manager role. Sometimes I worry about me being able to access everything in case of an emergency, but I'm happy having him be our accountant. I guess we're all just figuring out what works.
I was given advice to keep our single accounts. I want to be able to buy a present for M that comes out of my money...not our money. I know in the end my money is our money, but I like the separation for that. We use the joint acct to pay our joint CC. We put everything on the CC. Otherwise he pays all house bills and I pay everything else.
We're also lazy b/c we don't want to change our bill pay.
I get those reasons. I guess with online banking, the other spouse can see purchases so quickly that private gift-giving can get tricky.
And bill pay is one of those things where it's easier to merge money with new set-ups rather than change old accounts.
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^^ We're similar to this ^^
We lived together for almost 3 years before getting married. I think it's been a hard year, but not because we're married -- because of "life" in general that would've happened either way. For example, I'm in my last year of grad school, which is super stressful, and he just got a promotion which bumped his workdays up to almost 13 hours/day. Both are big exciting and stressful things, but both would've happened without the wedding. So, yeah. Hard year, but not because we got married.
Lucy Elizabeth 10.27.12
This exactly. I've seen these fights take place between several friends and family members and it has pushed some marriages to the brink. Seperate accounts completely resolved it. We didn't want to change what was working for us just because of an unwritten expectation to join accounts.
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This year was actually really fun. I like saying "my husband." The first year of living together, that was a hard year.
And we have one joint bank account for joint expenses (house stuff, dinners out, trips) and we each contribute a set amount to it. The rest is ours to keep for personal expenses (including our cell phones which are on different plans, our car upkeep and fees, etc.).
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Flame free! If that is the system that works for you, then great. At least it was something that you two decided together that would work for you.
Easiest adjustment has been us being "official". We've always known this was the real deal, its good to have paper to back it up now.
We've had a lot of challenges, but nothing that we wouldn't also have been dealing with had we not gotten hitched. Literally within days of us getting back from the honeymoon D had to leave for sea trials (weeks out to sea, week or so on land, weeks out to sea, repeat for the whole summer). During one of his weeks at sea I got news of my cousins imminent passing. Dealing with his decline w/o D around was tough, seemed like w/o fail that a new batch of bad news would come the day after D left for 2 weeks. The night my cousin passed, D had watch and I was home alone. We've also dealt with a deployment. D has been gone since January. He's now back in the USA, but we're bicoastal until our orders get cut. There is a good chance we'll be living apart for half of our first year of marriage, actually, if you count the sea trials we already have. We've also sold a house since we got hitched, amongst other things. The good thing is that through all of this we're doing well as a couple.
No, I dont think the first year is necessarily the hardest.
ETA: Regarding finances, we still have separate accounts. I think eventually we'll get around to getting a joint account from which to pay most of the bills...but we'll always each have a separate account. I honestly can't fathom another person being aware of every penny I spend...plus then I can be sneaky and get him bday presents and such.
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I think it's just a factor of modern banking and modern marriages. It used to be normal for only one spouse to work and there were limited accounts. Now frequently both spouses work and there are tons of accounts (multiple checking, multiple savings, CDS, IRAs, 401Ks), so it's just a lot more complicated.
It's probably just something that you'll have to develop to work for you. For us, we earn approximately the same, and we spend money in similar ways, so it works well for us to consider all the money "our" money.
We actually combined our accounts at least a couple years ago. It was while we were engaged but long before the wedding. Before that, H would write me a check every month to cover some bills and we each paid our own car pmts, cell phones, etc. We combined cell phones and gym memberships, got a joint account and each have our own checking accounts as well. From each of our paychecks, we deposit $100 into our own accounts. We cover gifts to each other and personal splurges (pedicures, new baking stuff, shoes, etc for me and golfing, gambling money, etc for him) out of our own accounts. There isnt a huge amount of money in either of our accounts at any given time (maybe $500) so it keeps both of us in check on the frivalous spending. We pay all the household bills, contribute to savings, buy groceries, pay for dinners, dates, and vacations out of the joint account.
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We didn't live together before the wedding, but that has not been a difficult adjustment. We have a large apartment and plenty of space. We go to bed and wake up at different times, but I keep all my clothes and accessories in the guest room so I just slip out of bed and go get ready in there.
If this is supposed the be the hardest year, we are in for quite a wonderful ride, because we have LOVED being married. It has been so much fun and we are more in love every day. We fought far far more when we were dating than we have since being married.
All of our finances are joint. We tried the 'fun money' system, but it was rather pointless because DH never spends money. So now it's all combined, but I keep a really close watch on everything. We use mint.com and it has been so nice for keeping track of all the investment accounts, credit card account, student loans, IRA's, etc. etc. that come along with 2 people. I handle all the transferring and accounting; DH just checks in with me when it crosses his mind.