I grew up hearing that your 20’s were the times to make your mistakes, your 30s are your prime years, and that anytime after that you stop counting. I don’t know if this is true yet, but in these 7 years of my 20s , I have found out a lot about adulthood, womanhood, and parenthood. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way.
1. You don’t have to go through every mistake for yourself
At times I thought I knew better than the people around me, especially when it came to my parents giving me advice. I would discount their advice by just letting it go one ear and out the other because in some way I wanted to be 100% responsible for my decision. However, when crap hit the fan, I was left to deal with the aftermath by myself as well. If there are people who have been in a similar or same situation, just believe them and make your decision accordingly. Now being older, I understand that Id rather have the warning than nothing at all.
2. Love will not hold your marriage together
This realization took a few years for me to understand. My husband and I married at the young age of 23. We dated for 3 years and he proposed after 1 year of dating. At that age I really didn’t understand all the things that were needed for your marriage to prosper. I just knew that I loved him and that I saw people in my life make mistakes in their marriage that I was determined to avoid. However, as I got older my perspective and things that I wanted changed. As a result, my husband and I bumped heads a bit. We went through a serious rough patch , not to mention having a child to add to the new responsibilities. Even though I loved him, I also knew that my love for him would not keep me from embracing the change that I knew was no longer negotiable. We went to counseling and found a more effective way to communicate these needs and I can honestly say that I appreciate him so much more.
3. If you allow a person to get away with things early, they will continue to do it later
Ive learned this by watching the relationships of people around me. If you allow someone to speaking disrespectfully to you when your dating, that will continue when your married and that person will then believe at that point that they have a reason to do so. I cannot stress enough that people have genuine conversations about things that are detrimental to their relationships early before they get married. My family gets married but are always determined to stay married and as a result some things that could have been fixed early weren’t , but now kids are involved.
4. Delivering your child is the easy part, it is normal to miss your old life
Its funny how we never really speak about the true struggles of being an ACTIVE parent. As moms we deliver the baby, go through body changes, experience hormonal changes, and then have to take care of the child after going through these huge experiences. They do not come with a manual, so its up to you to figure it out. Early on there was a lack of sleep, lots of crying , and little to no me time. I would find myself missing the ability to just come and go as I wanted. I would feel guilty for feeling this way. Now, I understand that this is totally ok. Its ok if you go through a grieving process of what your life used to be because it a part of what makes you who you are. However, I would say that it is not ok to stay there. There was a point in my process that I chose to embrace my new normal and to make up in my mind that everything I wanted to do before my child was born could still be done. Those plans just take more planning to accomplish now. People make it seem like having a child holds you back, but perspective is key! Nothing that God allowed will hold me back from what is truly meant to happen. And now when I get to those goals, I just have a little one in the back cheering me on.
I hope you ladies enjoyed this post and in the comments I would like for you to type what you have learned in your life so far.
XO , The Imperfect Woman
You are correct, it takes more than love to make a marriage work! Putting God at the center is what we are all supposed to do. 🙂 Keep going!!
These are some great lessons. Definitely yes on the first one. Let other’s mistakes guide us ha.
The one that I lingered at was about love and marriage — I couldn’t agree more! It seems strange, because love is given such a pedestal. We think of it as the strongest, deepest, most unbreakable thing, but it’s not! It’s flippant and untrustworthy. Marriage is absolutely a choice, and the foundation needs to be something deeper than love.
Number 3 definitely resonates with me! I’m 33 this year and really working on boundaries!
#2 is SO true, though! It takes so much more than just love to keep a marriage healthy and thriving. Some days you have to work so hard to love the other person!