On Sunday, Johnny and I will have been married for a year. That is downright cuh-ray-zee. I still haven’t changed my name (whoops), and we were still receiving the random wedding gift in the mail here and there right up until last month. It definitely doesn’t feel like a year has passed since the best day ever.

At the same time, so much has happened in our lives since then. We bought a house and moved out of the city. We said goodbye to my beloved cat Rick, who’d been with us since we started dating. We’ve gone on tons of trips, celebrated friends’ marriages and welcomed new babies of the people we love.

It’s been a whirlwind year.

One thing people asked me a lot this past year was ‘do you feel different now that you’re married?’ And even though Johnny and I dated for seven years (!) before getting engaged, the answer is yes, believe it or not, I do.

To me, dating always felt temporary. Of course I loved Johnny dearly, but there was always the possibility that things could end (hey, I’m a realist). Marriage feels permanent in the best way.

If we argue, I’m confident that we’ll work through whatever the issue is. If I’m facing something tough, I know I have a rock I can lean on even when I’m at my worst. Of course you can have these things without a piece of paper that says you’re married; for me, though, marriage has been a mental shift from being a fiercely independent party of one to one half of a partnership, and it’s taught me a lot.

What I’ve Learned In The First Year Of Marriage

1. Show your gratitude daily

I was originally going to call this post ‘The Most Important Thing I Learned From The First Year Of Marriage,’ and this was going to be it: make a point to show your appreciation for each other on a regular basis. My relationship is in no way perfect, but one thing I think we’re really good at is saying thank you to each other. It’s a small gesture, but it goes such a long way. It also often gets overlooked, and I think that’s where a lot of resentment in can stem from in relationships.

I do my best to recognize when my husband does something that helps me out, like doing the sinkful of dishes in our dishwasherless house or listening to me vent about whatever client is making me want to pull my hair out on any given day. He always says thank you when I make dinner or help fold his endless piles of laundry (WHY DO MEN HAVE SO MANY SOCKS). These are mundane, must-do parts of life, but having someone express gratitude that you did them makes you feel appreciated and noticed. It has ripple effects on your entire relationship.

If this isn’t something you already do with your significant other, I strongly suggest trying it out.     

2. Things aren’t going to be “fair”

This has been a tough hurdle for my Type-A mind to get over, but the first year of marriage has shown me that a marriage is rarely 50/50. Some days it’s 60/40. Other days it’s 90/10. The point is that the pendulum will swing back and forth, many many times over the course of your marriage.

Case in point: household duties. Since I work from home, I tidy up here and there throughout the day. It’s easier for me to sneak away and run errands, sit on hold with customer service when something needs fixing, etc. Sometimes this leads to me feeling like the workload around the house is unbalanced.

Let me tell you, if you get into this mindset for one second too long, the snowball will start a-rolling and you’ll quickly find yourself angry with your spouse for no reason other than you had to take out the garbage one too many times. Believe me, I get it, but I’ve learned that keeping score of what’s “fair” isn’t actually fair to anyone and will only make you miserable.

It’s much easier to: A) realize that expecting things to be 50/50 is unrealistic B) communicate to your partner when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and C) recognize all those times when the balance swings in the other direction, like when your significant other brings you surprise Chik-Fil-A or takes the dog out in the middle of a snowstorm so you can stay in bed. Acts of Service are clearly my love language.

3. Ask for help

This piggy-backs on #3: in a good marriage I feel like both people can and should ask for help from each other regularly.

I do not like to do this. Instead, I like to sit by myself and stew and make my husband use ESP to figure out what’s bothering me.

Just the other day, I was sitting on the couch with a scowl on my face because of something work-related. Johnny started off easy. “How was your day?”

Fine.

Then he got a little more pointed. “Is something bothering you?”

No.

Five minutes of silence.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on so I can try to help you?”

Even though I didn’t want to talk about it, I broke down and told him I was hitting a wall on a project. It was going round and round with the client and we couldn’t seem to move it forward, and it was making me feel like I was bad at my job. When I finally let him take a stab at helping me, he came up with a completely different angle than the one I’d been trying to force. Lo and behold, I ran it past the client and the project is now moving again.

The whole point of a marriage is that you’re stronger together, and you should take advantage of this by asking for help when you need it. I’m still working on this.

4. Laughter is the secret sauce

And you thought it was sex.

I think the moments you spend laughing with your partner are the most special moments of all—especially those really dumb jokes that would make anyone else cringe if they heard them. There is so much I love about Johnny, but his ability to make me laugh is at the top of the list. He teaches me daily to loosen my grip, not to take things so seriously. At the end of the day we have each other; everything else is just the icing on the cake (the wedding cake, the one we totally did not save in the freezer and thus will not be eating on our anniversary this weekend).  

I don’t think I could have asked for a better first year of marriage or partner to share it with. Here’s to a lifetime more.