What I Learned My First Year of Marriage

-By Brittanie Leake

When Anna asked to interview me about my first year or marriage, I was so thrilled! I’ve been married for a bit over a year, and marriage is just about my favorite thing ever—I get so excited when my friends get married, and I just want everyone to get married and experience how great it is! 

 However, if you are a human then you have seen many marriages fail, many marriages that are not very great. The sad truth is that even among Christians, divorce is a very real problem. I have confidence in my marriage, that it will last, and that my husband and I will truly love one another for all of our days. Yet this confidence does not come from myself or anything that I can do, or that my husband can do. This confidence is solely based in Christ, as we live out the Gospel truth that we are sinners in need of a loving and gracious Savior.

This is exactly how—and the only way—that a marriage will work, and will be full of love and joy: by God’s grace, by drawing from the deep love of Christ, and by asking for forgiveness over and over and over again.

At our wedding, my close friend read 1 John 4:7-21, which I think is the theme of not only a godly marriage, but of the whole Christian life: the power to love God and love others comes from God first loving us. This has been such a great and humbling truth in my marriage, and I have been drawn back to God’s love over and over repeatedly as I sought (and still seek) to love my husband well. I hope this interview will serve as encouragement for every woman, whether you are married or plan to never get married or fall somewhere in between.

¹⁶ So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19)

What were two things that you learned in your first year of marriage?

The first would be how much my sin and pride affects my marriage; I wanted to do things “my way,” when it really didn’t matter. The desire to be right is engrained in all of us, and marriage exposed that, especially in petty little things.

James 4:1 says, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” I learned early on that it doesn’t matter if my husband loads the dishwasher the “wrong way,” or if we do laundry differently. Rather than correct him or get upset about it, I could choose to be thankful that he was helping me! I could have saved many unnecessary little conflicts by learning this and addressing my sin sooner.

Another thing that I learned/am still learning is how to communicate; everyone always says that communication is so important, and everyone else is so quick to agree. Honestly, I didn’t really understand what that meant until I was married, and I didn’t realize how bad I could be at it. This year has been a great learning experience for me in a couple of ways.

1. Because I am more introverted by nature, I didn’t consider how much of marriage consists of talking—about EVERYTHING! At first, I thought it would be so hard to live with the same person and know what to say to him all. the. time. But the fun thing is, I love talking to my husband more than anyone else, and I feel like we never run out of things to say!

2. Before marriage, I was never really good at conflict management or confrontation—my go-to response was to shut down and mull over things internally. This doesn’t work as well when you literally share a room with the person that you have conflict with, because there is no escape! Having time apart to think does help, but eventually we would have to address the conflict at hand—sometimes this even meant “going to bed angry” and re-approaching the subject after we were both well rested and removed from the emotional aspect of the conflict. 

The first few months were the hardest, as I was figuring out how to communicate my thoughts and feelings more effectively with my husband, but his kindness and patience toward me made it so much easier, along with the fact that no matter how bad things could get, I could trust in his faithful love towards me.

What is something that you wish you had known/prepared for beforehand?

Because we had great premarital counseling and attend a church with many examples of couples and families who desire to please God, I feel like we learned a lot before we were actually married, which is a great blessing!

The one thing that I have found myself wishing I had prepped better beforehand, though, is learning time management when it comes to daily tasks. Taking care of a home is a lot more work than I would have thought! To go from living at home with my parents, to having a few roommates in my college house, to owning a home and being responsible to keep it in order is a big jump! I feel like I wasted a lot of time during the days by not being more structured or intentional with my time. 

Thankfully, I have somehow still been able to accomplish the things I need to, and I am getting better at being more organized with my time! (Surprisingly, now that we have a new baby, it actually makes scheduling my daily tasks and chores a lot easier—I am basically forced to do all that I need to during nap times 😊).

Brittanie is a college graduate, new wife, and new mother! She enjoys spending time with family, serving her church, and encouraging her friends.

Come back next week for Part 2! 

For those of you who are single, what has been most helpful to you in framing your perspective on marriage? For those of you who are married, what did you learn your first year?