The Most Difficult Year of Marriage

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:2

“We’re like a real, little family now,” he whispered to me as I was trying to drift off to sleep. 

“Yeah,” I smiled back as I gazed over at the sleeping newborn next to me. “We really are.” 

That was the end of the first week home with a newborn. We had survived our first week as parents (and the baby was still alive too). My husband and I were curled up together, trying to steal a moment for ourselves. Because, to be honest, there wasn’t any other time for each other.

You know how they say that the first year of marriage is the most difficult to get through; I’m sorry, but I disagree. The first year of parenthood is – without a doubt – the most difficult year to get through. 

You attend all of those birthing and baby care classes, but no class could have prepared us for what the first year would do to our marriage. I was prepared for not having much time for myself, but it never occurred to me how little time I’d have for my husband. 

Say goodbye to romance and date nights. 

Say goodbye to snuggling up at night and binge-watching something on Netflix. 

And no one told me how cranky my husband gets with no sleep. (Sorry, honey, but it’s true.) I had no idea that sleep deprivation would cause us to snap at each other and get so short with one another. 

On top of all that, you have two people stumbling their way around trying to figure out things like how to properly check the temperature of a bottle; how to get a baby on a sleep schedule (still never figured that out); and how to tightly wrap a darn swaddle. We were rookies and it showed. 

But there are so many other things that happen in those first moments as a new family. Like watching your husband fall asleep with a baby on his chest and your heart just wants to burst because you know – he loves that baby as much as you do. 

Or the first time you see your husband reading to the baby; talking to them just like he did when he talked to your stomach for nine months. And the first time you watch your husband attempt to bathe a slippery baby without dropping them.

You learn a lot in that first year. You learn to savor the little moments that you get as a couple in between all the diapers and crying.

But the biggest thing you learn is: you are a team, for better or for worse.

You learn to be gentle with one another. 

To be patient. 

And to stick together, bearing with one another in love.