One Year of Marriage

I have been thinking about this topic for a few months now. The Europe trip pushed it back a bit as we were enjoying our one year anniversary at the Tour de France. But as Pete and I are just two months beyond our anniversary, I thought it would be fun to reflect on what one year of marriage has looked like, what I expected, and how it is different or the same.

This is still one of my favorite photos. 

For starters, the past year really flew by. Between work, school, training for races and preparing for our Europe trip, there wasn't a lot of time to just soak in where we were at in life: our first year of marriage.

Don't get me wrong, we were enjoying life, but it wasn't exactly a blissful, relaxing year. Those two things don't seem to come together too often in my lifestyle. ;)

Looking Back on Our Wedding
Over the past year when I've thought about our wedding I've had a lot of happy thoughts as well as a few regrets.

Relief. I've been both relieved that our wedding day is behind us (planning was pretty stressful) and thoughts about how I would change things if I were to go back. It was an awesome, pretty, blur of a day and I wish I could just bottle up those sights, sounds and feelings.

Capturing the moment. With so many friends and family members in town from all over the country, I wish we had given a more specific shot list to our photographers. They were amazing, but I didn't expect not to have the opportunity to take photos with certain family members or friends. Luckily, I have the memories imprinted in my head.

Saying thank you. I still wonder if we were able to show our love and appreciation to all of our family and friends who came to our wedding. Did they understand deep down that we would not have been there without them?

There still remain a few thank you's that never got sent. I should have given myself only a month to do them all, but as the thank you's trickled out, there were certain gifts I lost track of who they were from, or whether or not I had sent so and so a thank you. I feel bad about it and hope they know that we are truly thankful for everything we received.

Taking a breather. I am really glad we didn't head off on a big honeymoon immediately following the wedding. It was a great opportunity to spend extra time with family and just relax. Heck, I spent half of that next week just taking naps!

On Marriage

I think I expected our first year of marriage to feel like an extension of our dating relationship. Since 2009, we've learned a lot about each other and have continued to grow as individuals, work on our relationship, and face new challenges together. While things didn't change dramatically, I definitely feel like we are more a team now than ever. 

What surprised me the most was the way the manfriend took a bit more ownership in the relationship after marriage. In his words, he said he felt more responsible as a married man, which showed up in a number of ways.

What shouldn't have surprised me, but did is just how supportive he has been. It feels pretty awesome to have someone who always has your back, through the good times and the not so good. 

On the other side, I have surprised myself a bit in that I seem to want to be more domestic. I can't help but want to work hard to keep the house fairly clean and organized, cook tasty, healthy meals, while still maintaining a life full of fitness and other adventures. There's something about officially being a team that makes it more enticing to want to say vacuum the floors or organize the closet. #callmecrazy

Growing as a couple

I have always been very independent and have consistently struggled with letting others do things for me or help me out. Although I'm no longer that single girl, I find myself making plans on occasion assuming the manfriend will be fine with it, whether they involve him or not. One area that I will continue to work on is figuring out how to think more about the "us" in these situations than the "I."

While this is only year one, I'm excited about the future and to see how our communication skills and relationship grow over time. A strong marriage isn't easy, but it is something I am committed to fighting for daily.

I love you, manfriend. Happy one year and two months!


Of possible interest: Premarital Counseling: the low down