‘What was the first thing you learned immediately after getting married?’ – 17 lessons people realised after tying the knot

Marriage can easily be seen as the end of a journey. Well done, you’ve met someone, fallen in love, got hitched! But… then what?

It turns out that in many ways, marriage is just a new beginning. There is plenty that it has to teach people, which prompted Forward-Plan-4124 to pose this question to the spouses over at r/AskReddit:

‘What was the first thing you learned immediately after getting married?’

Here are the top replies from enlightened couples…

1.
‘To limit our parents’ influence early on, so we could figure out what works for us as a couple. We are approaching 42 years of marriage, and we apply the same approach with our now-married children.’
-adrop62

2.
‘That you can sneak hundreds of Bobby Pins into a woman’s hair. Like a truly ridiculous number. Getting them all out took close to an hour.’
-Aminar14

3.
‘That there is something special about it after all. I used to be one of those people that didn’t really understand the point of it. It was just a piece of paper. If I love my partner I love my partner, marriage won’t make our relationship feel any different.

‘But flash forward it actually did in subtle ways. There is this additional layer of emotional security and commitment that changes how we mentally approach life decisions. There’s also this feeling that is hard to describe. Like it feels different when I mention my husband in conversation vs when I would mention my boyfriend. Almost like for many people there is additional reverence or respect for our relationship.’
-koolaid-girl-40

4.
‘The people who had been asking, ‘When are you going to get married?’ immediately switch to, ‘When are you going to have kids?’’
-NeedANaptism

5.
‘That from day 1 my husband went to a bar every day after work to unwind instead of coming home. We didn’t live together ahead of time (boomers), so I did not know this. He came home drunk every night. Terrible way to start a marriage, and yes, it led to divorce.’
-Clemens_24lesH

6.
‘It’s really fun to call him my husband and to be called his wife. Two years in, and it still has the same novelty’
-fomaaaaa

7.
‘That every day of your marriage is full of opportunity, and how you use your time will shape how your marriage goes. Maintaining a lifelong partnership with one person takes work, and you’ll have to learn from mistakes and communicate well. If both partners put in the required effort, marriage can be a beautiful thing. But if you start being selfish, or lazy, or don’t communicate well, it can all fall apart.’
-unsoldburrito

8.
‘That the whole Boomer “I hate my wife” and like 99% of stand up “Women be different from men” stuff was nonsense.
Pop culture has lied to us. Marriage is great. There’s a hot babe who lives in my house and she loves me.’
-JoeMorgue

9.
‘I accidentally locked my car keys in the trunk of the car on the morning after the wedding, and I learned that my new husband was a spectacularly good sport about spending several hours disassembling the car to retrieve the keys.’
-queerbychoice