Ah married life, that's when you're living the dream.... well so they say. Those of us unmarried relics wouldn't know but it's sure fun learning about. Who hasn't wondered what the most major life changes will be once vows are swapped and the clergy says "you may kiss your partner." Maybe the biggest surprise is that there is little to no change. That would seem like a letdown. Let's find out.
Redditor u/BoboDClown2019 wanted all the matrimonial partners out there to speak up by asking.... Married people of Reddit, what did you only start doing in your relationship after you got married?
The Regulars.
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Costco is now considered a date so that's something.
BearOfBears
Wife legit wants a Vacuum cleaner for Christmas. No necklaces, no diamonds, just another Dyson stick vacuum that we can just keep in the basement. This will make her happy. I meanwhile will feel like a bad 50's husband, but its a sacrifice I make for my wife.
Blog_Pope
Chefs.
Cooking, my husband was a chef and has always been amazing at cooking, I never really cooked at home (unless mr noodles or frozen dinners count). Once we moved in, I started calling my mom (who is also a chef) and asking her how to make certain dishes. Turns out I'm pretty damn good at cooking, somethings that I've made, both my mom and hubby wanted to learn the recipe form me!
Starting learning to cook 9 months ago.
dotsisu
RIP my love.
Quit checking out every room I walked into for hot available females. My wife was seriously, always the most beautiful person in the room and we would talk about anything and everything under the sun. She was my best friend too. Rebecca passed away from breast cancer on May 17th of this year. I'm still not looking. RIP my love.
DeanSmartin
I Got Out.
Most of these are good... mine's not. After I got married was when my (now-ex) husband's abuse became apparent. He straight up told me he owned me now and could do whatever he wanted to me.
Yeah there were signs before hand (hindsight is 20/20) but once it was legal, it became glaringly obvious. We had our first married fight on day 1 of being mr and mrs.
Took 3 years but I got out.
foxes-and-flowers
Nothing.
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Honestly if you talk to any just married couple, most don't feel any different at all. Nothing changes.
It just becomes more socially acceptable to start discussing having kids.
The only thing that really changed for us was that I was suddenly comfortable getting loans in both our names and combining our finances. Finances are likely the most important factor when it comes to marriage.
Trigger93
The Guinea Pig.
Cooking, sadly my mother never taught me how to cook so my husband was my Guinea pig. I feel bad because it took me a few years to learn how to make food edible.
otherm0ther
Coffee Forever.
My parents both never drank coffee and didn't really care for the taste of it. Someone gifted them a coffee maker as a wedding present. They tried it out their first morning married and have made coffee every morning since.
it_helper
For the Very 1st Time....
We started having sex. We were both virgins.
It's been an amazing 4 years! The first time was was way better then everyone said it would be and it's been fun for us to learn and explore everything for the first time together.
CzCzCz540
Money. Money. Money.
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Share finances (we did some before but it becomes more integrated), bought a house together, no condoms, life insurance and such being in your spouses name, a lot more compromise on decisions... nothing is different right away but you start doing these things slowly.
Goofball412a
Living Situations.
Lots of realizing I suck at cohabitation and need to clean up after myself more. Learning to say no to the things I want even if it doesn't put us in a bad financial situation we got goals and stuff so I want those to happen more than some upgraded SSD for my computer.
mynipplescutglass
Hey Hubby....
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Calling him my husband. That's about it.
dsteere2303
Ours was the same way. It's kind of a relief though isn't it? It's hard to explain but saying "wife" instead of "girlfriend" when we met new people was so much easier.
Fair_University
"Honey, what's wrong?"
Everything. I married my husband, who was in the Navy, at 18, and he immediately moved me across the country and then got deployed, leaving still teenage me alone in a strange place trying to take care of our home alone.
My sweet, elderly neighbor, who had been really lonely because her son didn't visit often, came over the first week with some flowers from her garden. I was so touched I started crying, and she said, "Honey, what's wrong?" I was like, "How do you write a check to pay bills?????"
She helped me, and we became really good friends. I'll never forget her.
Christian_Writer
"Dear & Moose"
He tried calling me "dear" when we were dating. I jokingly told him "don't call me dear, I'm not your wife," he never did it again. Fast forward a few years, we get married and walking out of the court house he whispers in my ear "I can call you dear now." So now he calls me dear and I call him Moose.
ScaredOfSocks
The Brood.
Having children.
ImSharticus
I always found it funny that despite how religious her side of the family is, my mum and both her siblings all had a daughter that had a kid before getting married.
Mad_Squid
Same Old. Same Old.
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Having the same damn thoughts and voicing them at the same time. 🤦♀️
caligirl41
Or wearing basically the same clothes. Feels like that started happening more and more often.
Fair_University
Nothing special.
Nothing special. The usual things that go with being married, co-habituating, taxes, sharing things.
If you start doing things you didn't do before you were married, you may run into problems. Be who you are all the time, and that way when you do find the right one they like for you for all of that.
phydeaux70
The Annuals.
Creating 'traditions' together. It is our wedding anniversary this month and I am looking forward to arguing about how big the chunks of bacon should be while making home made pizzas, listening to flashback Friday all while wearing my wedding dress.
dalekbearkissme
Let's Chat.
Honestly if you talk to any just married couple, most don't feel any different at all. Nothing changes.
It just becomes more socially acceptable to start discussing having kids.
The only thing that really changed for us was that I was suddenly comfortable getting loans in both our names and combining our finances. Finances are likely the most important factor when it comes to marriage.
Trigger93
Putting Work In....
Gardening. She loves it. I see it as more chores, but I love her so I will happily do extra chores to see her happy.
This is literally what my dad told me when I'll know I've found the right woman. When I'll willingly do extra chores just go make her happy.
Unmarried at 33.....
FrankieFillibuster
Bon Voyage....
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Nothing really changed. We had already been living together for almost 10 years... getting married was basically just an excuse to party and go to Hawaii.
mejok
How fun was that wedding? You had an excuse to party, sounds like it was really really fun!
ToInfinityandBirds
Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run