From Engaged to Married; How It's Changed My Life

I must admit that I was once sceptical of how marriage would change your feelings towards someone. I guess I used to think that I already loved my partner whole heartedly, so how could a ring change that? Well that way of thinking totally changed once we became engaged and I realised that it was the commitment and promise to each other, that changed the way you felt, and that in itself is what took our relationship and feelings to an entire new level. Once I experienced the depth that promising to spend the rest of our lives together with the words 'will you marry me?' followed by a very emotionally filled 'yes', I knew that eventually getting married and formally acknowledging these promises in front of those closest to us, and not only to each other in private, would totally change the love that I felt for my fiance.

I am so glad that we enjoyed 22 months of engagement, because they truly were so special, and I would constantly look at the sparkler on my finger as a reminder to myself at how lucky I was to have met the man that I would spend the rest of my life with at such a young age.

And I was right, now, one month into our marriage, my love has changed again.

I must admit that in an odd way, I've become more morbid.

Yes, that's right, you read right; morbid.

I've began to feel this overwhelming need to protect my husband. I think it's because we've made this promise to spend the rest of our lives together and I want to make sure that we will grow old together.

For example, I usually get home from work later then my husband, but I had a week day off a couple of weeks ago. I knew that he usually finishes work around 5, so I had tea underway ready for 6. When I looked at the clock and it was 615 and I hadn't heard from him, I started to worry; was everything okay? Had he had an accident at work? Why hadn't he contacted me? I tried to call and he didn't answer. All of a sudden I went into panic mode and even debated calling his work mate. I thought, I'll just wait ten more minutes. Next thing he walks through the door, an hour and a half later then normal. As soon as I heard the car pull into the driveaway, I jumped out of my seat and went out to the car and gave him a huge hug. I was so relived to know he was okay. He on the other hand had no idea of my worry haha! It's odd, because usually I wouldn't have given two thoughts to the situation; my rational mins would've just known that he had to work late, but instead, my I just got married, he'd better be okay, he can't leave me mind totally jumped to conclusions.

So yes, I do feel a little more protective.

Another thing that has changed is the way that we deal with conflict. I remember the first time we started to niggle at each other because we were exhausted after the wedding and hadn't spent enough quality time together and all of a sudden, bang, a heated discussion arose. Instead of losing my shit at his irratational  behaviour I took a deep breath, thought there's no point fighting, we've just got to find a way around this, and calmly said it sucks that we haven't spent much time together, but we've just had our wedding and things will calm down soon and gave him a big cuddle. We brushed it off, went to sleep and woke up much more content and less frazzled the next morning, and totally avoided a situation that usually would've ended in tears.

So I guess, you realise that you're going to be together forever, so you are much slower at losing your fuse, and focused more on the solution rather then the cause.

Of course, there's much more that has changed then just our behaviour.

One of the most obvious changes would be my name. I haven't officially started the process to changing it legally, but I have changed it on Facebook, so every time my married name pops up I giggle. It's funny because many of my best friends said that they didn't even blink an eye when my name changed; it really was just meant to be.

I feel like we've started our own little identity now as a couple, and soon we'll have our own little family.

It's a pretty awesome feeling to be content.

I'm loving married life. We intend on spending quality time together before starting a family, with more travelling, some renovating on our house, and just enjoying this new chapter in our life on the cards for the near future.

I feel so grateful for my husband; he truly grounds me, looks out for my health and makes me super happy.

When I look at him I see my future, my happiness and a guy who truly knows and loves me 100%.

So marriage has definitely changed my life, and I'm super proud to become a wife, and to call Mick my husband; he's definitely the better half!!!

How has marriage changed your life?

Look after yourself and those around you,

Kirsty xxxx