Brenden and I have officially been married ONE year. The hardest year. The most exciting year. The newlywed year. Even though we dated for seven years and lived together for two of those years before we got married we still experienced all the high's and low's of the first year. For the whole time we were engaged, I kept telling people, well things will not be that different from what we were used to but boy was I wrong. Of course nothing seemed different from the outside looking in but on the inside lots changed.
The first big change was merging our money and thankfully we were guided by Mr. Dave Ramsey and his Seven Baby Steps. This was our pre-marital counseling and our post-marital counseling. We still spend a good amount of time reviewing the steps, processes and best ways to make our money do what we want it to do. But boy was it an adjustment having Brenden see every purchase I made. I am an avid Starbucks drinker, love to pamper myself every now and then with a nice mani/pedi, and what girl can go into Target and spend less than $100? After a few months of constant battles, we finally found a system that works well and we are not constantly questioning each other.
Our second biggest change were expectations of each other as husband and wife. Yes, we lived together and yes, we knew what each other "expected" but our roles had completely changed. We were not just roommates and we were not just dating anymore. I cannot say that we laid these expectations out for each other because they were more internalized expectations. Things we probably saw our parents do for each other and we did not realize they were things we expected our spouse to do for each other. Those things were quickly realized and we figured out the best way to tackle these new responsibilities to/for each other.
Overall, we had a really great year. We traveled a lot for friends' weddings, our kitchen was remodeled and the inside of the house painted, we experienced our first [true] holiday split time, and we got another dog (haha)! We had lots of ups, some downs, and many memories to look back on. We are now wrapping up our anniversary trip in New York and I cannot wait to share all our pictures with you guys. Stay tuned next week for a recap.
Cheers,
Kayla
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