What Marriage is like for a NewlyWed

Marriage.

Marriage is beautiful, in whatever way you would define it. My life completely changed after I got married, literally. I left home and lived in a place I was unfamiliar with, then my husband left me for an entire month (for training). For myself, this marriage has been what many old-timers would call pretty “traditional”. When I got married, I moved from my home with my parents and siblings. My husband and I had never lived together, nor really spent a night together up until that point. I was terrified. We talked about it a lot, before we even got engaged (yes, being together for 6 years before I even got a ring, we had definitely talked about everything), and we really wanted to live with each other. We didn’t know each others habits, we didn’t know how each other slept, etc. It’s different. We barely even spent much time together; we were long distance for 6.5 out of the 7 years that we were dating.

Again, I was terrified that we were not going to be compatible together. A lot of my friends and family did encourage me, knowing full well how in love we were with each other, but they did express some concerns in the beginning. I shared these same concerns. What if we hated the way each other lived? The way we did or did not do the dishes enough. The way we washed the clothes. Or maybe even the way we put our clothes in the laundry.

In the first month after our marriage, we were temporarily living in Washington state. I am a very family-oriented individual, and it was really hard for me to adjust, even if I knew we were coming back to the islands soon. I really enjoyed it. The first month together. I learned about him and his habits, and he learned about me. It was a real trial run, I guess you could call it, even if we technically had already signed our lives away to each other. I enjoyed it! It was amazing.

Now that we are back in the islands, we have our own place, we have vehicles; we are what we would call “adulting”. I mean, he’s been adulting way longer than I have already. He left home right after graduation, and joined the military. But, now I really am at this self-reflective point where every night after work, I just stare at him and thank the Heavens for all the blessings I have received in my life thus far. We are very happy with each other, with the way we live, and the way we work together (which is very well).

Many old-timers may also call this, “The Honeymoon Stage”. It hasn’t been all bliss as people normally would say this stage is, we’ve definitely gotten into arguments, but nothing really serious. It’s mostly me being petty. haha. It is also, most definitely not all unicorns and rainbows, but 90% of the time it is. My husband shows me that he cares, in ways that are not normal. My friends and I call this “The Local Boy” syndrome. Local boys in Hawaiʻi are different. They show their love in different ways, but you can see it and you can feel it. My favorite part about my husband is how handy he is. I swear, he is part mechanic, part-plumber, part-electrician (not so much part-maid though) and part everything else. It’s amazing for me because I can’t do the things he does. But I pull my part with having a job and sharing the cooking and cleaning duties.

Overall, it is beautiful. My marriage is amazing. I think we are doing very well right now as newlyweds, we have lots of support and love from the special people in our lives. I wanna give a huge shoutout and mahalo to our families for being so helpful in our transition to our very own place! We are grateful, and we know how blessed we are.

*If you haven’t heard in recent news of Hurricane Lane, where I live in Oʻahu was not really affected. But our hometown got hit pretty bad with severe rain and flooding. Keep our islands in your thoughts and prayers!

Happy Curl, Happy Girl

Signing off,

Curly Island Girl