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Writer's pictureRachel Berntsen

9 month reflection


So I thought I'd use this post to share some updates on my marriage, since Peter and I are almost at the one year mark. Why now, you ask? Because we just booked our one-year anniversary trip! Hurray!! We'll be going to Italy to explore Venice, Cinque Terre, and Rome, and we'll be going to Greece to eat our way through Santorini (because let's face it - we couldn't get enough of Greece while we were there on our honeymoon!). We just finalized our itinerary yesterday and booked all of our flights/trains. Boy, was that a load off! We're hoping our tax return will pay for a good chunk of this trip too. ; ) All that's left is to book our Air Bnbs (Shameless plug - if you haven't tried using Air Bnb while traveling, you should! Peter and I have had overwhelmingly positive experiences with that site. We like that the apartments are affordable and that they come with their own kitchens, so when taking a two-week trip like the one we'll be taking in May, we can cook some of our meals instead of eating out all of the time, as tempting as that is). This trip is exciting to me in particular because I'll be returning to Italy for the first time after having studied abroad in Rome during the spring semester of my junior year. Cinque Terre will be a new place for me, but Venice and obviously Rome won't be. I remember making a wish in the Trevi Fountain, and supposedly if you do that, you're bound to return to Rome. Glad my wish is coming true!


Peter and I joked last week about how we're "winning" the marriage game because we feel that we've been doing pretty well as newlyweds. Some say that the first year is the hardest, but we haven't really found that to be true for us, perhaps because we tried to tackle areas of difficulty from the get-go (granted, ask me what I think of year 2 and maybe my answer will change). We've been keeping to our Memorable Mondays to ensure that we spend quality time with each other every week while doing something a little different from the norm (otherwise, we'd probably be content catching up on the newest episode of This is Us or The Good Doctor every week). We resolve conflicts fairly quickly, which we honestly had to learn how to do while we were dating. Peter likes to tackle conflicts right away and I prefer taking time to calm down, so we had to figure out a compromise early on if we wanted to be able to solve conflicts before having to part ways for the night. We also make sure we set aside time to talk and "catch up" on each other's days because that's something that can easily be overlooked. We established expectations early on as well with regards to responsibilities around the house and finances, so we're doing well in both of those areas. I'm especially thankful that we figured out the latter quickly because Peter's time of unemployment could have been much more stressful than it turned out to be.


We've also gotten into a rhythm that's different and in some ways more relaxed than what life was like while we were dating. For example, we went all out for our first Valentine's Day as a couple (Disneyland Paris for the win!) and still went out of our way for each other for our second Valentine's Day (that's when I hired a private dance instructor to come to our home and teach us how to swing dance hehe). The day before this year's Valentine's Day, one of my best friends asked through her Facebook status if any single people were available the following day to see a Broadway show with her. My immediate reaction was to think, "Why only single people??" Of course, the next day, it dawned on me what day it was. Peter and I exchanged gifts (both of which were games lol), but since he gets me flowers every once in a while and since we usually go out to eat once every week or so, we didn't feel the need to do anything else. The pressure is off to constantly shower each other with gifts and to surprise each other because we're no longer apart, but that just means it's even more special when the other person does something unexpected (Speaking of which, I should do something for Peter soon! I haven't done anything in a while).


In all seriousness though, while we feel that we've gotten a good grasp on things, marriage hasn't exactly been the smoothest of rides. People always talk about how difficult marriage is, and I can't say I truly understood why until I got married myself. Another best friend of mine just shared an article with me entitled "The Grief of Singleness, The Grief of Marriage" (you can find it here), and the author, Hannah Nation, describes marriage as "a beautiful wreckage" and mentions how there is grief in marriage for the following reason: "There is simply no pain like being wounded by your best friend, and no remorse like being the one who plunged in the knife." Wow. She really hit the nail on the head there. Peter has hurt me (emotionally, never physically) on a couple of occasions, and after each one of those instances, I've come to realize that I've never been emotionally hurt quite as badly as when he's hurt me, for exactly the reason that Nation gives. He's my number one, and he should therefore be the LAST person to hurt me. When it happens, though, it feels like I've experienced betrayal. Don't get me wrong - I'm definitely guilty of this too. I've hurt him on multiple occasions as well, and I feel TERRIBLY afterwards. What makes it especially difficult is that sometimes I KNOW I'm about to lash out at him, but I don't always stop myself because sometimes I just need an out, and I know he can take it. It sounds like sadism, but I promise it's not. I don't enjoy hurting him in the slightest. But...I'm human. I'm flawed. I make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are worse than others. Yet the fact that Peter can love me despite my flaws has simply been a reminder of how much more God loves me.


Marriage has been tough in other ways as well. I consider myself an empathetic person, but it's really hard for me to empathize with Peter at times, especially when he's having struggles with work because I've just never been in quite the same work environment that he calls the norm (from the sounds of it, working in a school is very different from working in an office). It pains me that I can't help him in that one particular area except to try to be encouraging. Physical intimacy has also been harder than I thought it would be, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Movies make it seem like it's a no-brainer, but that hasn't been my experience. People always talk about how good sex is, but they don't tend to talk about how it can be painful in the beginning, and in my case, that pain had a stronger mental impact on me than I would've thought possible (perhaps more on that in a later post). Learning to balance my time with people other than Peter has definitely been a challenge too. Despite these difficulties, though, full disclosure: I'm more in love with Peter today than I was on our wedding day.


All in all, while being married has been a truly humbling reminder of just how imperfect of a person I am (and, by extension, of how imperfect Peter is), being married has also been a wonderful reminder of what love looks like, and how He is love.



P.S. - You might have noticed that I removed the view counter on my blog posts. Yeah, I decided I don't need those in my life lol. I'm not doing this for the "likes". I'm doing this to both encourage and help others, and to help myself as well. Being transparent has been incredibly life-giving. To those of you who have read just one of my blog posts or all of them, thank you! I appreciate the support!! Feel free to reach out if you'd ever like to discuss anything further. =D

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