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And they lived happily ever after! The end.
Except, that’s not exactly how real life goes! After marriage, life changes and things are different for you and your spouse.
Whether you have been in a relationship for years, have been living together for years, or think you know all about each other; things change.
My husband and I decided that after our wedding, we wanted to explore on our own and live away from family. Crazy, right? Why would you consider relocating after marriage? Why would you want to move away from people who love you?
The benefits of relocating after marriage out weighed the cons; at least, that was the outcome for us. We had been together for eight years before getting married so we definitely had a solid foundation to our relationship.
Marriage was a big turning point for our lives. Therefore, we wanted to do things our own way without the interference of others’ opinions.
Six months before our wedding date, we made the decision to move from our home state of California and start fresh in Texas. We made this life changing move exactly one month after our wedding.
When sharing our story, we’ve been told we were crazy, brave, and a combination of other things. Above all, I’m here to tell you how we benefited from relocating after marriage.
If you’re like me, you’ll conduct loads of research on the location of your potential new home before making such a big decision. However, I hope these six benefits inspire you to want to take a great adventure with your significant other after marriage!
1. No Interference
No interference from anyone means that you get to make your own rules without input/opinions of others. This allows you to have some trial and error periods about what does or does not work for your marriage.
You get to conduct yourselves how you choose to and learn about one another without the input of others. Meanwhile, there is definitely more privacy that comes with being further away from family.
Marriage is a bond between people who have decided they want to be together.
Although, I have heard time and time again that when you marry someone, you marry their family, too. This is true to a point.
I am in no way encouraging anyone to sever any ties with family. This is to encourage married people (especially newlyweds) to be brave enough to do this married thing the way YOU want to.
Based on experience, we received unwanted advice on what we should focus on as a newly married couple.
Some opinions included religious advice, advice from those who did not have good track records of positive relationships, and advice from some who said we wouldn’t be happy unless we did X, Y and Z.
We appreciated that we had individuals who loved us and meant well by giving us their advice or opinions.
However, we didn’t want to be told how to make our marriage work. This would be something we did on our own.
Relocating after marriage and away from the influence of others seemed to make this goal a success.
2. It’s Exciting
Starting a new life together as newlyweds is exciting by itself. But, when you get to start off fresh as newlyweds on an even bigger adventure of relocating, it’s even more exciting!
There is the excitement of learning about your new home, new job opportunities, and a blank slate to start out.
It’s unfortunate that at that time in my life, there was some turmoil I couldn’t wait to be rid of.
Making this move to a completely new state where no one had any preconceived notions about me or my husband meant that we truly had a fresh start. It was exciting to think about all the possibilities we were going to have and knowing we were going to be away from all the drama was such a plus for us.
3. You Become Closer
Being away from family meant that we learned to have to lean on each other in times of need.
In marriage, there is always going to be some sort of disagreement. Therefore, we had to truly work out our differences together.
For instance, there was no running to mom’s house to get away from the argument. There was no running off to dad/brother/sister or anyone to blow off steam and discuss the private matters that went on in our marriage.
Above all, we had to face them together, right then and there.
Of course, taking time to blow off steam can be a good thing when in a heated discussion. I know a walk around the neighborhood or taking a drive can help to clear your mind.
However, there are those times when you could be tempted to go to a friend or family member to tell them what has happened. In such case, you could end up badmouthing your spouse because you are upset. This friend/family member almost always takes your side of the argument.
As a result, you could end up driving a wedge between you and your spouse.
The best thing we did was work on our marriage together and get through those tough times together. We didn’t have to worry about others becoming involved because we didn’t have their influence present.
Consequently, this forced us to have to face our troubles together, which ended up bringing us closer.
4. You Learn a New Way of Living
In addition to all the excitement of being in a new place, you also learn a new way of life!
There are new foods to try and history to learn about how this place came to be. You will discover new sights to see and learn about what makes your new home so special. You learn how the locals live and what makes their ways different from what you are used to.
Moreover, it’s a whole new experience and almost a whole new way of life.
From personal experience, we found that people were much more willing to strike up a conversation with us while walking down the streets of Texas. This is not usually the case in California. We had to learn to let our guard down a bit to allow those friendly conversations to happen. We also learned how catchy it is to incorporate “Y’all” into our lingo. It was pretty fun!
5. The Friendships You Make are Unique
When you grow up in a certain place, the friends you make usually stem from childhood friends and family friends. While these friendships are special and stay close to our hearts, there isn’t a whole lot of effort that you have to make to get these relationships.
When you move away from the unknown, the relationships you build are based upon true commonalities. As a result, they are relationships that you have to work to build trust and build a bond.
In addition, now you are looking for friends that will take a package deal of buy-one-get-one because you have a spouse to consider. But, that’s not to say that you each can’t have your own individual friends whom you hang out with.
Most importantly, each relationship developed outside of your comfort zone is unique!
6. Less Obligations
As negative as this might sound to others, I feel like relocating after marriage actually gave us more time to be together.
When you aren’t in close proximity to family, you have less obligations; less birthday parties, less holiday house jumping, less gatherings, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I loved getting together during family events when I could.
However, there were days where I just wanted to spend time with my boyfriend-turned-husband and didn’t want to feel obligated to go somewhere for an event.
Families can be complicated at times.
As a result, the pressure of you needing to be at a specific event or holiday can become stressful.
Oftentimes, it became a game of, “Well, you didn’t come to my party last year so I won’t go to your party this year.” This may sound petty, but I’m sure we are not the only individuals who have had this kind of experience.
Living 1800+ miles away from all those obligations gave us extra time to do the things we wanted to do.
Any family event that we chose to go to became much more special. This meant we were making the decision to be involved. Therefore, we were excited to see people we hadn’t seen in months or even years.
A Change to Consider
Relocating after marriage was emotionally challenging at first. However, we now look back on it as one of the greatest adventures we have had.
We lived away from family for the first five years of our marriage. This helped us to find a new ‘normal’ for ourselves, for our new life, and for our marriage.
Therefore, we learned to depend on one another in times of crisis. We became closer and we deepened our relationship, bond, and trust. I wouldn’t take any of it back whatsoever!
To sum up, this was truly the best thing we could have done for getting our marriage off to the best start.
What About You?
What great adventure(s) have you been on that have strengthened your marriage? How special was your newlywed chapter? What do you think about relocating after marriage? I’d love to have insight into other people’s experiences! Share your story in the comments below.
Resources
The Newlywed Instruction Manual
Always,
Samantha <3
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