Adjustments (1)

In my last post, did I say “live happily ever after”? Well there are some things that only happen in Disney fairy tales. In real life however, after marriage there are adjustments to be made and not all of them are easy. There are some things you can’t do anymore, some patterns you have to change, some inconveniences you have to adapt to, and so on. Some adjustments can be amusing though, depending on how you manage it. Let me give you some examples of the adjustments we had to make.

The first major adjustment we had was getting used to being with each other most of the time. Before we got married, we used to meet up for limited amounts of time, usually after work or on weekends. Now that we were married, we were spending all our time together. One week after our wedding, we were driving along together in the car when Mr turned to me and said “Babe, I’ve noticed that you have been following me around for the past week. How come?” I saw the funny side and burst into laughter. I replied, “Hello? We are now joined together, who else will I be following around?” Then he saw the funny side too. He explained that as a single guy, he was used to going out and coming in whenever he pleased without a chaperon. Now that he was married, he had to either take me with him, or tell me where he was going. He had to tell me about even a simple trip to the supermarket. I understood that because I was learning to adjust to having him around me all the time too.

The second major adjustment was learning to share our personal space. Since we were now married and living together, we had to share a house. And that meant sharing a bedroom, a wardrobe, a bathroom and everything! It was fun moving all our things into our first flat together, putting up photos on the walls and things like that. When it came to sharing the wardrobe space, there were a few disagreements. When I was a single girl, I had my whole wardrobe to myself. I didn’t have to deal with having a man’s shirts, boxers, socks and ties competing for space in my wardrobe. Hubby too had never had to share his space with a woman’s excessive number of shoes and handbags. So we had some disagreements over who had a right to more space. We also had to share a dressing table and a chest of drawers and understandably, there were more arguments. No matter how many times I explained it, hubby didn’t understand why I had so many creams, cleansers, lotions and stuff. I didn’t understand why he had so many t-shirts taking up all the space in the drawers. Thankfully, somehow we managed to fit all our stuff into our room without having too many arguments. And then one funny day, hubby said he discovered feminine stuff in his bathroom. I started laughing and reminded him that he was now living with a woman and it was now our bathroom!

I had another adjustment to make. I had to get used to cooking regularly for two people. As a single girl and a student, I didn't bother to cook much. I ate whatever I had and cooked whenever it was convenient for me. At times I would not bother to cook for many days, relying instead on take-aways and meals I could get on campus. Now that I was married, I had to think of poor hubby’s meals! It meant I had to get into a regular routine of shopping, planning and cooking meals that I had never bothered with doing before. That was a major adjustment for me and I’m sure it is for many newly-wed ladies too.

Then I also had to adjust to my new name as Mrs. This meant I had to go through a lot of my official documents and change my name one by one. I had to change my passport, bank account details, my National Insurance details, driving licence, employer records, phone bill records, redo my CV, update my details on online accounts, etc etc. It took forever and it was a major drag but I had to do it! Even now I still come across some website or document that still needs to be updated.

There were some more adjustments I had to make, but I’ll stop here. Stay tuned for my next update.

Remain blessed and favoured!