Marriage is a plunge, no matter how carefully it is planned. The man takes on the responsibility of supporting someone besides himself for the rest of his life. The girl gives up her name, her independence of action, and usually her career. Both mates must adjust themselves to an entirely new existence.
The pattern of wedded relationship that will persist for the rest of your married life usually sets during the first few months. Every day you will take first steps. And those steps are important. You start living together, planning together and sleeping together. At a hundred points you can make missteps that will leave scars on your relationship long after the original incidents are forgotten. That’s why the first few months are so important.
For a girl, the wedding day will undoubtedly be the biggest day she will experience in her life. Because of this the groom should hesitate before he discourages a church wedding or suggests that they be married by some roadside justice of the peace. While being married in the church is not necessary for marriage happiness, it has been found that those couples who are serious-minded are more likely to achieve happiness if their wedding is under the auspices of the church. Then it is planned, it is dignified, and the vows—which seem to take on added meaning in a church—are uttered before friends and relatives.
The bride should have the privilege of setting the date of the wedding. In doing this she should try to set the date so that it will follow a few days after the menstrual period has ended. She does that not only because of anticipated physical intimacies, but because the menstrual period frequently makes a girl irritable and depressed—hardly the best mood for a honeymoon.
In planning the wedding and the honeymoon it is important to avoid all situations that might produce tension and worry, and especially the feeling of “hurrying somewhere.”
If you can manage a honeymoon, take it by all means. It doesn’t need to involve a long trip or staying at an expensive resort. Here are some suggestions on the site of the honeymoon that may be helpful:
It should not be spent with friends or relatives.
It should be spent at a place where the couple is not well known.
It is better to spend it in the country or a small town rather than in a bustling metropolis.
It should be spent where there will be no obligations to attend social functions or to meet definite schedules.
It should be spent where both will be completely free of outside responsibilities, such as cooking their own food so there will be no limit on the time they can be together.
It should be spent where there are things to do and activities to enjoy whenever they feel in the mood for such diversions.
The first adjustment faced by the typical married couple is sexual, for the typical couple engages in sexual intercourse on that first night. If they have discussed their attitudes on sex before the wedding they have paved the way. Nevertheless many couples feel self-conscious on their honeymoon night. Perhaps they would be even more self-conscious if they realized that marriage happiness during their first few years will depend a great deal on achieving a good sexual adjustment.
Often a husband can make that first night easier for a wife if he finds an errand to perform while his bride is preparing to retire. He may even suggest to her that he will be gone for fifteen or twenty minutes, which will give her a chance to be in bed when he returns. However if she seems eager for him to remain he should do so because she may be a little fearful of being left alone. In any case it is important that both respect each other’s privacy especially carefully during the first few weeks. Marriage, as we say, is an abrupt step and each should strive to ease the impact of the transition as much as possible.
If the new husband is ever romantic it should be now! The bride is probably a bit nervous about what is to follow and this can be largely dissipated if the groom is gallant and endearing and considerate. This is not only the decent thing to do but is sound psychology. It will build up in her a feeling of pride in him and a desire to share with him everything possible.
Actual intercourse should not be launched on that first night if the passions of both are not genuinely aroused. It is important that both the bride and groom be completely agreeable before the first intimacy is experienced. If the bride remains apprehensive about it they should content themselves with milder intimacies and take up the matter another night. They should not feel there is some hard-and-fast tradition that they must have an experience that first night.
If the bride is a virgin and still possesses the impediment of one, both should understand that some pain will be experienced during the first intercourse and neither may achieve a climax.
Further, both should understand that sexual adjustment is learned, not inherited. The initial learning may be somewhat awkward and not too satisfying. It’s not a natural, spontaneous thing, contrary to the average young person’s notions. It is this misconception that frightens many brides into frigidity when they find intimacy doesn’t come naturally to them immediately. Many feel that there must be something wrong with themselves when they don’t enjoy it from the start.
But if they are patient and gentle with each other within a few weeks they should sense the deep thrills that lie in store for them. And within six months at most, they should have achieved a grand and satisfying relationship.
If they are to achieve anything beyond animalistic excitement, the aim of both the man and girl should be not to receive satisfaction but to give satisfaction. It is this considerateness that makes the act sublime and enriching. It welds them into a strong union.
As the honeymoon progresses, something usually happens toward the end that jolts the couple back to reality. For the first time, perhaps unconsciously, the groom starts acting like a husband or the bride like a wife. Usually it is the groom. Perhaps he forgets to kiss his bride when he leaves her for a few hours. Perhaps she catches him thinking of something else while she is confiding her love. Or perhaps he just refuses to get up and look at the gorgeous sunrise that is thrilling her.
This little “baptism” comes sooner or later and brides should prepare themselves for it. It signifies that the honeymoon is just about over and that they are returning to the day-to-day job of living together as two human beings. The bride may feel let down or heartsick. She may even cry a little or flare up and upbraid him. Or worse she may retreat into her shell. If she fails to handle the incident calmly and retain her sense of proportion she may develop an attitude that will get them off to a bad start.
As they get down to the day-to-day job of adjusting themselves to married life the wife will find that the major burden of the adjusting falls on her. That is because the woman normally must rearrange her life, upon marriage, more than the man, despite the fact that they are partners. For example:
He stays in the same community whereas she often must leave hers, and her friends, to live with him.
He keeps his name whereas she drops hers to take his, with a “Mrs.” in front of it.
He keeps his job whereas she usually quits hers to learn an entirely new occupation—homemaking.
He continues to make his own money whereas she becomes dependent upon him even for spending money.
He lives the role of husband an hour in the morning and a few hours in the evening whereas she spends fifteen hours a day functioning as a wife.
He continues spending the greatest part of his energy trying to please his boss, whereas she starts devoting her energy to winning her husband’s approval—approval for the way she cooks, dresses, runs the home, takes care of the children, if they have them. Normally the wife spends at least eighty per cent of the husband’s income on such things as these and naturally is anxious to convince him she is using his money wisely.
What adjustments must two people make in their attitude toward each other in order to live together happily?
If you were to accept the word of certain newspaper “experts” on love and marriage, you might get the impression that all the new husband need do to make his wife happy is not to smoke in bed, to pick up his own clothes, and to wash off the bathtub ring. Likewise it would seem that all the new wife has to do is remove her lipstick before retiring and avoid talking to him before he has had his breakfast.
Marriage would be simple if those sorts of things were the essentials of marriage adjustment. Actually the essentials are much more basic.
For two people to live together successfully as husband and wife they must be able to understand each other as only true companions can.
They must recognize the needs of each other and be willing to coöperate to satisfy them. Perhaps the girl is easily upset emotionally and needs her husband’s calm disposition to steady her. Or perhaps he has feelings of inferiority which she can offset by building up his ego.
And they must be able to face the facts when differences arise (as over money), and be able to work out amicable solutions together. Mates who haven’t learned to compromise differences face a stormy future.
If you want your mate to be eager to please you instead of ignoring or defying you, learn to condition him by rewarding him with praise and caresses. When the husband does something that displeases a wife she must never reward him. Likewise, for example, if the wife wants a new dress which is too expensive and the husband tries to make it clear to her that he cannot afford it, and she has a temper tantrum, he should not give in and buy the dress. In this case, the husband would reward her temper tantrum.
Let this happen two or three times and thereafter she will use a tantrum to get the things she wants from him. She knows he hates such scenes and will give in. It will be much better psychologically if the much-desired dress can be given to her as a reward for something nice she has done.
While a husband or wife wants to feel that things are done out of love and for love only, the fact remains that love continues only if it is nourished. If a husband snarls at his wife, never gives her a kind word, never rewards her and is always condemning or punishing her, the day will come when she will absolutely despise him.
There is such a thing as deathless love, but it exists only when it has a firm foundation of considerateness between the two.
Another thing newly-weds should learn is the importance of tension reduction. The husband may come home from the office and lash out at the wife because supper is a little late. What has happened, probably, is that he had some disagreeable experience at his work but had to keep his temper under check there. He comes home seething and explodes at the first provocation. The young wife may retreat to her room crying unless she senses the real reason for his anger. Instead she should recognize that he is tied up in nervous knots, take his outburst philosophically and try to reduce the tension by caressing him, by talking cheerfully and complimenting him on something nice or laudable he has done.
By so doing, she brings pleasantness after unpleasantness and thus encourages him to bring his troubles to her rather than to his male cronies or to some other woman.
Married couples should also understand the importance of climactic sexual relations as a means of reducing tension.
Another psychological habit that should be helpful to newly-weds is the use of indirect methods to get what they want. You will have a happier, more loyal mate if you can get him to do things you want by making suggestions rather than demands. If the lawn needs mowing just mention how ragged the grass is getting. Usually he will then mow it on his own initiative.
On the practical side, it is very helpful if the two can work out some plan for handling the income during the early weeks of marriage so that they can see just where the money goes. A simplified but formal budget is helpful here.
Further, it is vital that the wife quickly acquire skill in managing the home so that the husband will be initiated pleasantly into the role of being a home-body. A messy home frequently produces irritations which disrupt cordial relations between the two mates.
The new wife should plan her housework so that the tasks fit into a pattern and are taken care of in order and at specific times. For example, Monday may be “wash day”; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday may be “shopping days”; Wednesday may be “ironing day”; Saturday morning may be baking day. This really amounts to a budget of her time and her work.
If they are to five happily ever after it is important that the wife know her husband’s food likes and dislikes. The importance of food to marriage success is frequently misunderstood by newly-weds, and highly underrated. A large portion of the husbands who take their troubles to the Penn State marriage clinic disclose sooner or later that their wives are poor cooks or serve them late, slapped-together meals.
When a husband comes home tired and harassed from his day’s work, nothing will restore him to a genial mood as much as his favorite dishes of food, expertly prepared and served soon after he arrives.
During the first few weeks of married life the wife should make an effort to learn something about her husband’s food likes and dislikes. Some of this should already have been gathered by observation during courtship and the honeymoon by noting the foods that he chose in a restaurant.
Simply knowing the husband’s favorite dishes is not enough. The new husband may not throw the first batch of burned biscuits at his wife, but if the next batch is burned too he is apt at least to throw some caustic comments.
Soon after the honeymoon there will come a time when one or both of the mates may no longer be satisfied just to be with each other. They will become more independent of each other unless during the first few months of marriage they have explored each other’s interests and found things they can do together.
If he is to become anything more than the provider and she anything more than the housekeeper, they must establish a sound basis for companionship. How can this be done? The essentials of human companionship are pretty universal for any two people whether they are mates or just close friends. Comrades most frequently have these things in common:
They enjoy talking to each other. Mates should not feel they have completely succeeded as partners until each regards the other as the one person he or she can unburden himself to about anything that is on his mind. Each can help develop a strong feeling of “conversational companionship” in their union by being a ready and sympathetic listener to the thoughts that are uppermost in the other’s mind. Both should realize that a woman’s interests naturally are different from a man’s. After their own immediate preoccupations of the day, a woman’s interests tend more toward clothes, decorations and amusements whereas the man is more interested in money, world affairs and sports. A good middle ground is their mutual interests and hobbies and the activities of their mutual acquaintances.
Companions enjoy doing things together. One of the first things newly-weds should investigate, if they haven’t already, are the things they can do peaceably and enjoyably together. Perhaps both get a great deal of pleasure from listening to early jazz recordings, or skiing, or merely playing chess or being together every night and saying very little.
Visiting friends can be fun where the two husbands are congenial and the two wives are fond of each other. One of the sad things about marriage is that a bride’s best friend marries a man whom her husband can’t stand; or the man’s old roommate marries a flighty, affected girl the wife can’t stand. Such antagonisms should be sensed and the bride and groom should in such cases try to get together with their old friends on an individual rather than a family basis.
Companions respect each other’s opinions and abilities. The shrewd wife keeps up with the world so that her husband will respect her as an individual in her own right. Wives that become completely dependent on their husbands, and cling to them because they have no other interest, frequently lose the respect of their husband.
It helps if they are seeking a common goal. One of the very best ways there is for a couple to develop a strong basis for companionship is to have common aspirations which both believe in and talk about enthusiastically.
This means sharing in a long-range project. They map their plans together and carry them through. They share triumphs and disappointments. They may build or remodel a home for themselves. In the process of planning, waiting and dreaming together they become comrades for life.
While it may be argued that building or buying a home is more expensive in the long run than renting, nothing gives a couple a greater feeling of solidarity than home ownership, especially when they plan together in building, remodeling or furnishing it.
Even saving money can be a common goal that will develop companionship, especially if the couple are saving the money for something they both want badly such as a car or a long-dreamed-of vacation trip. In general a young couple earning between eighteen hundred and three thousand dollars a year can well aim to save at least five per cent and better still ten per cent of the income. If they strive for a percentage much higher than that they may find it entails too great a denial.
Similarly the goal of a couple may be to raise a large happy family. They plan the arrival of their children and, working as a team, guide the growth and development of each child.