Beating the Post Honeymoon Blues

Beat the Post Honeymoon Blues

As the excitement and stress of your pending wedding built up, you probably experienced at least a few moments where you were anxious for it to all be done.  Most couples find their honeymoon to be the most relaxing and carefree part of the whole experience of getting married.  But after the honeymoon is over, the newlyweds are frequently faced with an unexpected feeling known as the post honeymoon blues.  Now that the wedding and honeymoon are over, all the excitement is gone.  You’re not a bride and groom any longer, but simply another husband and wife.  Get your marriage off on the right foot, and try these tricks to beat those blues.

1.   Start a new project together.

Planning your wedding took so much time and energy you’ve probably let other hobbies and projects fall to the wayside.  This can be a great opportunity to jump start your marriage right by working together for a common goal.  Whether it’s painting your home, scavenging for antiques, or putting together a photo album or scrapbook of your big day, find something you can enjoy and accomplish together.

2.   Start a new routine.

Don’t just fall back into your old pre-wedding routines (work, dinner, sleep, work again). This can be an especially tricky pitfall if you were already living together before you got married.  Find a new routine to incorporate into your life that helps you take a few moments and enjoy being married.  Some suggestions might be making a big breakfast Saturday morning, taking an evening walk together after dinner, or finding a fun way to use one of your new wedding gifts.  Crockpot Friday anyone?

3.   Go on a date.

It might be tempting to lock yourselves away in your cozy bedroom and ignore the outside world for awhile – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but try to find time at least every other week to go out for dinner and a movie and enjoy an evening together, reminiscing about those first dates you had, never suspecting where it would lead you!

4.   Make your house a home.

Now that you’re married, it’s time to give your house or apartment a new feel.  Take some time to put away your gifts and redecorate a little bit together.  Put up pictures from your wedding and honeymoon, frame one of your invitations, and put little keepsakes and mementos from this special time together around the house.

5.    Keep the love burning.

Just because you are married does not mean to say that you’d stop saying “I love you” to each other.  Better yet, show your spouse that you love him by sending him love notes.  It does not have to be long; just short sentences or quotations written in inexpensive paper or even post-it notes.  Stick them to refrigerators, on his home computer screen, in his brown bag (if he carries one), or even under his pillow.  How about ordering some custom fortune cookies with your love quotations inside?  Be creative – let him guess where the next love gram will appear.  It will be part of the fun.

6. Don’t hold it in.

The first few months and even years of your wedding can be a challenge for even the most fairy-tale perfect couple.  Don’t hold it in and risk getting angry at your spouse for not understanding what you’re going through.  Share your thoughts with each other and find creative ways to deal with them. My husband and I found ourselves bickering over going out to eat.  We both tend to get cranky when we’re hungry so at the first sign of hunger, one or the other of us would pull into a restaurant in an effort to keep the other one happy.  The result was that we were going out to eat before we were both really very hungry, and forcing down a lot of meals thinking we were making the other person happy when neither of us really needed to eat.  Once we recognized our problem we came up with a system, and now we ask each other how hungry we are on a scale of one to ten before we stop to eat.  It may sound silly but it’s avoided a lot of needless arguments.

Most importantly, when you’re feeling the blues coming on, remember all of the wonderful things you have going on in your life now. The wedding may be over and the bride spotlights no longer shining on you, but you have a wonderful spouse to spend the rest of your life with.  Take some time to appreciate your marriage every day.