Transitions in Marriage

This week we talked about transitions in marriage and what problems a couple might run into as they are establishing their identity as a new couple. I was really surprised by some of the seemingly little things such as style of decorations, and scheduling can cause problems. I guess the view I have always taken is that if you love each other you will be able to work those little things out but we determined that if you don't have good communication skills then even seemingly little things like those will give you trouble. It really is interesting to see how gender roles can play a big role in the adjustments that occur in the first month of marriage. For instance both of you have been living separately and taking care of all the things necessary for existence. When you get married you sort of automatically think that your spouse is going to start assuming the gender specific roles you saw modeled in your home growing up. For example a few common gender role tasks associated with women are grocery shopping and cooking. Since both of you have been doing those things separately you will have to talk about it and make adjustments to determine who will do certain things. There are also adjustments that have to be made in the first year of marriage like where will you go for the holidays and what traditions do you want to continue from your families of origin. I think for a lot of people we just assume these things are going to take care of themselves but something that was said in class that i thought was very profound was "Wonderful things wont happen accidentally, wonderful things are deliberately planned." I think there is a lot of wisdom to that sentence and I learned a lot from thinking more along those lines.