I'm in need of advice...

[jesseedavis]

Well, keep praying guys!

Long story short, she misunderstood me from the start, got defensive about things and we argued for a long time. I said some really hurtful things to her, and I ended up instead of trying to communicate, I just wanted to treat her how I felt she was treating me. Horrible, horrible.

I got fed up with arguing and just reverted back to my original message. I finally got her to be quiet and listen to me and after that we actually got to talk about things.

We made up, and things are great at the moment. We're taking tonight to go out to dinner and talk and just spend an evening out in the beautiful weather. I just really hope that we can break this cycle and keep communicating.

Handy, I really have a lot to learn, over the past two years I picked up some really bad habits. I really want to put these off and put on Christ and His fruit.

 

[handy]

Jesse,

The two of you are young and both of you can grow to learn to communicate with each other... in some way this is going to be much easier for you two being younger than if you starting marriage as a much older person... (I speak from the experience of being married at a much older age than you.) But you do have to work at it. The reason why so many marriages of younger people fail is because youth tends to believe that marriage is all about the warm fuzzies... it's not. It takes work.

I'm sure that part of what caused the lack of real communication at first and the argument is pent up frustration on your part. You've made a good first step here... keep at it.

And yes, definitely keep pursuing God and His fruit and gifts to you... :yes

and I'll keep praying for the two of you!

 

[jesseedavis]

You've made a good first step here... keep at it.

We've made plenty of first steps, and after arguing and fighting we make up and the next week or so is usually wonderful. After getting everything out on the table and it sorta sinks in over night or something, we both just tend to be more aware of things and go out of our way to not make the mistakes that led to the argument in the first place.

I just don't know how to keep it going...It seems to just be completely unnatural for both of us to continue being like this for very long. Eventually, we just start to revert back to how we were and the cycle repeats itself.

This seems like a very dumb question to ask, but how do we make things the new norm and communicate more often and more openly?

 

[handy]

This seems like a very dumb question to ask, but how do we make things the new norm and communicate more often and more openly?

Not a dumb question at all.

And to tell the truth, it's a lot harder to do than one would think...

However, the good news is, both of you are so young and your marriage is no new that any habits you have aren't so ingrained as to be impossible to overcome. The best way to create a new norm and communicate more openly and freely is to repeat what works as often as you can... and remind each other of what didn't work in the past and not repeat it.

Yep, harder to do than one might think.

But, I think the two of you can make a go of it.

In my family most of the people have married young... I didn't, but I was the odd ball. My brother and sisters were all married before age 20. My one brother-in-law was the "old" one, marrying my then 18 year old sister when he was 24.

Not to quote Katy Perry or anything, but they are all still married to their teenage dream.

I was really old when I got married... 38 to a 33 year old guy.

I do have a couple of younger relatives who were in their mid-20 to later 20's when married, but most of the nieces and nephews married in their late teens/early 20's.

No divorces in the family at all.

And all of us... whether married young or older or in the middle, we all of us experienced a lot of ups and downs the first couple of years of marriage. I think if you were to take a straw poll here at the site for all the married people, you'd find the same thing. The first couple of years of marriage are going to be hard no matter what.

What makes a marriage come out of those first few years strong enough to last a lifetime is to learn the lessons of the first few years well.

This is what you and your wife have the opportunity to learn. Learn to communicate, learn to meet each other needs, learn to pamper each other and to sacrifice one's self for the other and for the sake of the family.

Do this, and you'll be sitting on a porch one day with your wife watching the grandkids at play.