“Marriage is hard.”
I had heard that statement all my life.
But I suppose because I was young and my head was full of qualities that I just knew I’d find in a spouse, I never thought to ask more about what makes marriage hard. Subconsciously, I probably even believed that the type of guy I would catch would never make it that hard.
In reality, marriage can be incredibly difficult no matter how great the guy or how prepared you think you are. It takes a lot to meld two lives — two different personalities, from two different backgrounds, equipped with entirely different ways of dealing with conflict and seeing the world.
If I could go back and give my 21-year-old self a heart-to-heart, here is what I’d tell her makes marriage challenging:
1. Overcoming expectations based on family experience
The relationships you observed and experienced your whole life in your own family are likely very different from what your soon-to-be spouse experienced.