Advice for Young (& Old) Wives
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.
Want to have a marriage that goes the distance? Me, too! Here are some of the things that I’ve learned in 23 years of marriage, and my advice for you.
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I'll send you time- and money-saving tips every week!
Bryan, aka FishPapa, and I have been married for over 23 years. He was — and is — Mr. Right For Me. The picture on the left is us in 1992 when he came to visit me in France as my boyfriend. The picture on the right is us in 2014 when we returned to celebrate our 20th anniversary with six kids in tow.
We’ve been through thick and thin together. Richer and poorer. In sickness and in health. We’ve welcomed six children to the world and cried together over three miscarriages. We’ve moved five times and over 4000 miles.
It’s been a crazy, wonderful, amazing ride for over 23 years.
Did I just say twenty-three years?! I was twenty-one on our wedding day, so I guess we’ve been married more than half my lifetime. Holy cow!
Anyway, over the last 20+ years, I’ve learned a few things. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes when it comes to loving my husband. Thankfully, he is much nicer and more forgiving than I am. I scored, major big time, in marrying this guy.
Here are just a few of the things that I’ve learned over the years, things I offer up today as unsolicited advice for young and old wives:
Advice for Young (& Old) Wives
Remember that he’s not “everything.”
Your husband is not supposed to fill your every need. You probably already knew this. But, I think it’s easy to forget. I know that I forget. Relationships with other women are vital — and your relationship with God trumps all.
Setting realistic expectations sets you both up for success. Expecting more than is realistic just isn’t fair.
Don’t expect your husband to be everything for you; he can’t possibly do it.
Let him be different.
While I consider Bryan to be my best friend and confidante, there are some things that he’s just not into. Things that I love.
A trip to the grocery store is not his idea of fun. I forget that he doesn’t go giddy over blue cheese and mushrooms, two of my very favorite foods in the world. I forget that he doesn’t really want to hear every detail of “that time of the month,” whereas a girlfriend can nod and respond in sympathy.
Likewise, my eyes tend to glass over when he talks about camera lenses and photography practices. We’re different and that is okay.
He doesn’t have to like everything you like or talk about everything you want to talk about.
Realize he will bug you.
Your husband will inevitably leave dirty socks on the floor, forget to take out the trash, or drive too close to the car ahead of him. Since he is different from you, he will do things differently. And this will bug you.
Provided that they aren’t inherently “wrong,” work to ignore those things or minimize their importance.
Trust me, you’ll both be happier if you let him be him.
Learn from him and from your differences.
My husband has been an immense help to me over the years in learning how other people think. Sometimes it’s a man brain v. woman brain kind of thing. Sometimes it’s just differences of opinions and personality. Interestingly enough, I tend to be the insensitive one and he is the one to clue me in to be kinder and gentler.
Either way, when I take the time to learn and be accepting of the differences, I am helped personally, emotionally, and socially.
Your husband is the prime example of someone who is different — but who also loves you. You can’t say that about everyone you disagree with.
Forgive and seek forgiveness.
Living in close proximity to another person with differing opinions, habits, and preferences is a recipe for disagreement. It’s going to happen. And as sparks fly upwards, so will our tempers. Get in the habit of forgiving — and asking for forgiveness.
Remember why you said yes in the first place.
Hang on during the rough spots.
I am not a marriage counselor. I’m just figuring these things out as I go along. Twenty-three years is a long time, but I have so much yet to learn. While I continue to make more mistakes, I am thankful to sometimes learn from them.
I know that some marriages are more difficult than others. And really, some seasons of life are harder to navigate than others. Our circumstances can put a lot of stress on our family relationships. These tips are not the cure-all, the magic bullet, or the special formula to eternal marital happiness.
Trust me, we’ve had our problems. However, I’ve found that these things help bring perspective to my situation and help me love my husband more and grow as a wife. I hope they help you, too.
What have YOU learned in marriage?
Originally published May 14, 2011. Updated August 20, 2017.
It’s me again. : ) Don’t mean to be a bug, but I have found the scene I described…It never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It is so very, very true. So very, very true…
The scene from ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ (1946) Just as relevant for today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzi4piQ7VLg&feature=related
Happy Anniversary! Beautiful pic, love it! We will be celebrating our 31st…Time flies doesn’t it? : )
Very good advice! I have on my site a wonderful old 40s movie, one of the best ever…”The Best Years of Our Lives” …There is a scene where Myrna Loy explains to her young adult daughter how yes…she and her husband, too have had their problems, it was a scene where Teresa Wright who plays her single adult daughter is thinking that her parents have never had any problems whatsoever…. One of the best scenes ever.
So true. So true. Thank you for the great advice to young wives and the great reminders to us older wives. May we continually strive to bring our husbands “good, not harm”, all the days of our lives.
I have learned to cut my husband more slack over these last 20 years. How silly I was as a young wife to expect so much! I must have read entirely too many romance novels as a young girl. He’s human. I’m human. We mess up. We forgive. We move on.
Happy Anniversary.
Happy Anniversary! Small world. We celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary yesterday! We were married seventeen years ago on Friday the 13th.
I just believe that we should all treat others as we would want to be treated and everything else will just fall into place.
Something a widow once told me is that she would take all the socks on the floor and any of the other pet peeve things if she could have her husband back. Puts things in perspective.
And from love and respect (http://loveandrespect.com/) we should be assuming that something our spouse does that we didn’t like or whatever came from love and not something negative. Don’t assume the worst about our spouse and it makes things look differently.
Thank you so much for sharing what the widow said. That really hit me and I will definitely be keeping that nugget as a reminder to keep things in perspective. I am quite sure you just made a huge impact on my marriage – and life for that matter!
Thank you!
Happy Anniversary!
Congratulations! What wonderful reminders.
I love my husband to pieces, but find myself really needing these reminders to let the little things go and, like you said, remember why I married him in the first place.
this is great, and congratulations! i’ve just recently learned, after 16 years together and almost 13 married, so sometimes keep my mouth shut! let things go every now and then … i’m always pleased by the effect later … b/c he then also lets things go that i do!
Happy Anniversary! I look forward to reaching the 17 year mark one day!! And I thought we were big stuff b/c we’ll be celebrating 6 years in July! ;-D
Our marriage started off extremely rocky- I was 19, he was 25 and we were expecting our first baby already. We had moved in together a few months earlier, even though as Christians we knew it was wrong. We had already planned a wedding in September, because we knew we were crazy about each other, that we’d found our “other half”. But when we found out in May that we were expecting we decided to just go to a Justice of the Peace and save every penny we could for the baby.
I would be a complete liar if I said the first 5 years of our marriage were happy. Far from it. There were some really happy moments, of course. But overall there was a lot of strife, mostly because we didn’t have time to really date and enjoy that time of it being “just us” before we were suddenly parents. That’s a huge leap. Plus our finances were horrible (neither of us had finished college and were working minimum wage jobs), and we had plenty of “extended family” issues. Oh, and to top it all off we were both still pretty immature when it came down to it.
A few years ago my mom gave me a copy of “The Power of a Praying Wife” by Stormie O’Martin. I started reading out of desperation, but now I still pray those prayers out of a sincere love for my husband. I’ve always loved him and I’m pretty sure he’s always loved me! ;-D We just had some major hurdles right from the beginnning. He’s my best friend and I love the life we’ve started building together!
I just want to encourage other wives out there who may have had less than the “fairy tale” romance leading up to their marriage and throughout it, that God works through a sincere heart praying for help, willing to be changed. You alone can’t change your husband or your marriage. You will more than likely pester your husband to death and push him farther away from you. Only God can create lasting changes in someone’s heart and mind, because only He can truly know and understand each person, and how to help that person change for the better.
@Danielle B, LOVE that you chimed in to share your story. Marriage is one of the biggest challenges of life, rt next to parenting. Thanks for such encouraging words!
@Danielle B,
Thank you for sharing your story, Danielle. As someone who’s dealing with plenty right now (illness, extended family our own personalities), marriage does seem overwhelming at times. You and Jessica as well as all the other awesome comments have just served to inspire and encourage me tremendously.
@Jessica– Congratulations on 17 years! Awesome. You are SO inspiring.
@Prerna,
Welcome. ;-D
Sorry to hear you’re struggling- I’ll be praying that the Holy Spirit washes over you and encourages, strengthens and renews you in ways that will effect your family for generations to come!
@Danielle B, Wow! Exactly what I needed to hear! I think I will check that book out.At age 25 I met my husband, who also happened to be my first boyfriend, and fell madly in love.I am a Christian and I knew better, but we got pregnant before getting married, I convinced myself that he is a Christian and we married 4 months after we started dating. And now, almost five years and 3 kids later I can say that it has been very hard, but I take my marriage vows very seriously.I totally have been guilty of pestering my husband and trying to change him.My advice for anyone out there who is getting married is make sure you know the person very well and don’t rush into anything. Seriously.Hang around other people and ask them what they think about the person you are dating.Take their criticism of that person seriously.And once you are married, honor your marriage vows, realize that there are going to be some difficult days, months and years.But marriage is also a blessing and the good times often overshadow the bad.
Happy Anniversary! My husband and I were high school sweethearts who reconnected after years of being apart. We have been a couple for 11 years, married for 7 years this June. He drives me nuts sometimes. We have been through some really scary stuff, we’ve hit super rough patches, one particular one where we almost called it quits. I took my marriage vows to him very seriously, enough where we managed to work it out. I’ve learned that each of us has our own opinions, and don’t have to agree on everything.
My secret to a happy marriage (what works for us), I want him to be happy, and he wants me to be happy. 🙂