What No One Tells the Bride by Marg Stark

Thesis: You don’t have to pretend everything is fine, the fact that it’s not means it is fine.

Specific Things to Remember:

Believe you can be happy in marriage

Challenge conventional thinking

Make your OWN marriage

Give yourself a lot of space to figure stuff out

Don’t number your priorities – let it be. It’s okay to have different ones than what you think you should have.

Hold on to your identity through holding on to some stuff.

Married social life:

Don’t underestimate what your friends, and your single life, meant to you. Honor them instead.
Don’t buy into the idea that marriage makes you a traitor or dullard.
Set boundaries and prune your relationships, choosing only supportive ones.

Talk about your values, goals and fears – set rules that work for you.

Delay making changes that will dramatically alter your financial status.

Don’t force your spouse to do something he or she is not good at.

Use trust to surprise the soul – give when you’re expected to take

Act like an equal and demand help.

Employ the “who cares most” rule – then force yourself to care less.

Choose unconditional love every time.

Figure out what really prevents you from feeling loved and cherished.

Help him “get you loved” but identifying those things.

Love for the sake of loving.

On having children:

Add to your family only for the right reasons
Wait a little longer. Grow up a little more.
Build a foundation for as long as it takes.
Have fun and get funny. People stay happy with children if they intimately “get” each other and enjoy it.

Say it out loud, not just the bad but the good. By doing so, you celebrate the unique and quirky nature of your life and love.