Before we got married, we sought advice for newlyweds from all the married couples we admired. And because of the marriage advice we received, adjusting to married life was easier for us.
So today, we want to share our best marriage advice for newlyweds with you. You can use them to build a strong foundation for your marriage.
Let’s get started!
Best marriage advice for newlyweds
1. Develop a plan to build a strong foundation for your marriage with your spouse.
This is very critical for your marriage. And it starts with thinking as a team, treating each other as equals and with respect.
In other words, you value each other, work together, and both have an equal say in your marriage.
Without a strong marriage foundation, your marriage could easily end in a divorce. So spend some time with your spouse and develop a plan to build a strong foundation for your marriage.
Don’t know where to start? Read these articles.
2. Learn how to communicate with your spouse.
Communication problems are one of the common issues a lot of married couples face every single day.
Learn how to communicate effectively with your spouse as soon as possible. Because without effective communication, you will encounter a lot of problems in your marriage.
And from our experience, communicating effectively is key to the success of your marriage.
3. Learn from married couples who practice what they teach.
If you hear someone giving good advice to newlyweds, listen.
But make your own decisions, apply what works for you and your marriage.
4. Have reasonable and realistic marriage expectations.
You see, the way you were raised is different from the way your spouse was raised.
What you expect to be the “norm” might not be for your spouse. Discuss your marriage expectations, be realistic, and compromise with each other.
This includes your gender roles in marriage. And don’t expect your marriage to be like what you see in the movies.
5. Talk about everything.
And anything with your spouse, especially the stuff that hurts. No secrets!
Because not talking about the things that bother you could eventually lead to you resenting your spouse and/or marriage.
If you don’t know where to start difficult conversations, use these thought-provoking conversation starters for couples.
6. Learn how to adjust to each other and married life.
Adjusting to marriage won’t be easy for every couple.
For example, adjusting to living together in the same house, your new name change, sharing household responsibilities, combining finances, etc. can be a challenging time for couples.
If you are having difficulty adjusting to married life, read some of the articles here.
7. Trust and respect each other.
You can’t have a healthy marriage without trust and respect.
Trusting your spouse is very critical to succeed as a married couple. So take the time to build, maintain, and create boundaries for both of you and your marriage.
By building boundaries, you will encourage the growth of trust and safety. Also, don’t keep secrets from your spouse as it will create mistrust in your marriage.
Respecting your spouse means you don’t say bad things about them to other people, friends, family, co-workers, etc. It means you treat your spouse in the same way you would want to be treated.
You respect who they are as a person, their opinions, hobbies, passions, etc.
8. Choose a theme for your family.
A family theme is a vision for your marriage and family.
Click here to learn how to choose your family theme today.
9. Raising children is not easy!
We recommend waiting at least one year to have kids. This will give you both enough time to adjust to married life while creating your new routines.
But we understand, life happens!
10. Memorize this statement:
The first year is a learning and transitional period for your marriage!
Have a lot of patience.
11. Be independent and interdependent.
Make time for yourself so you can continue to do the things you are passionate about. Getting married doesn’t mean you should stop doing the things you love, but finding a way to incorporate it in a way that works for both of you.
Dedicate time to spend with your spouse so you can grow together as a couple. Choose one thing you can both do to connect and grow together every day.
Because you don’t want to wake up 10 years later and notice you have grown apart or are living like roommates.
You want to wake up each morning feeling refreshed, happy, and excited about living another day with your spouse.
Also:
Create a list of fun things you can do together as a couple.
12. The grass isn’t greener on the other side.
It’s greener where you water it. Keep your marriage the priority.
Not happy with a part of it? Talk to your spouse and come up with ideas to help grow that area together.
13. Learn about your new family.
And how best you can relate to them.
When your spouse has issues with your family members, it best you handle them yourself. You know your family members better than your spouse and vice versa.
Don’t forget to set boundaries in your marriage too.
14. Money matters!
Our best financial advice for newlyweds is to figure out your finances. Talk about your past financial history.
Your student loans, credit card debt, how you will file your taxes and spend your money.
Will you have joint or separate bank accounts? There is no his or her money, the two become one.
15. Learn to compromise with each other.
It can’t be your way all the time.
16. Forgive each other when you make a mistake.
And learn to not repeat the same mistake over and over again.
Your spouse can only take so much; they have their limits. This is also a way to build trust.
17. Divide and conquer your household chores.
Who does what? What other responsibilities do you have to share?
Think about the chores you both love and enjoy doing (or hate the least). Split these chores and do them diligently.
If you both dislike doing a particular chore(s), take turns doing it.
18. Commit to your marriage.
Work on your marriage daily. Make sacrifices for each other.
Never take your spouse for granted.
Show and let your spouse know how grateful you are for them.
19. Be prepared for unexpected challenges.
In other words, life will hand you some lemons; make lemonade… or lemon bars-whatever works for your marriage!
There are will be unexpected challenges that will happen out of the blue. For example, being laid off at work, diagnosed for a terminal disease, death of a loved one, getting seriously injured, etc.
When you are faced with these difficult events, work together to overcome them. You are the perfect team!
20. Touch, hug and kiss each other as often as you can.
It will enhance your physical and emotional intimacy.
21. Talk about your financial goals.
Save money for a rainy day.
When making any big purchases like buying a car, a house, etc. discuss it with your spouse first.
And only go ahead to make the purchase if they agree.
Plan for the future.
22. Sex is important and vital.
Sex is a unique way that you get to connect with your spouse and no one else. Use that as a time to explore, and take your time.
We understand life is busy, sometimes you have opposite schedules, and kids add a wrench to sexy time. Scheduling can be helpful for some couples, reducing the chances of your marriage becoming sexless.
Oh, don’t forget to mix it up. 😉
Have you and your spouse had these 8 conversations about sex?
23. We recommend you don’t buy a house in your first year of marriage.
Our reason is simply because of the responsibilities that come with owning a house. And the marriage adjustments you have to make as a newlywed during your first year.
Also, buying a house after your first year could be the perfect gift for your first wedding anniversary.
24. Embrace changes to yourself, and your spouse.
From our experience, you will both change as you grow.
Your health, career, how you do certain things, the way you think, where to live, your view of the world, things you believe, way of parenting, and much more will change as you grow and learn more.
That said, these changes can make your marriage and life better… or worse. Spend time to learn, understand and communicate all the changes you go through as you experience them with each other.
So your spouse isn’t shocked to wake up one day living with a stranger. It’s another reason why open, honest, and effective communication is critical to the success of any marriage.
Take these quizzes:
Marriage Quiz: How Strong is Your Relationship?
Relationship Quiz: How Well Do You Know Your Partner (or Spouse)?
25. Be selective with who you share your struggles with.
When you have issues that arise in your marriage -and they will- choose a person to seek guidance from whom you respect and know they can be an unbiased third party.
You need a mediator, someone who will be able to give advice about the situation by seeing both sides.
Using family members can be tricky in these instances, especially with a lack of boundaries.
Use your intuition in these circumstances, and talk to your spouse beforehand. “If we have issues that come up in the future and I feel like I need advice, who would you be comfortable me speaking to about it outside of our marriage?”
This is just another way communication helps your marriage.
26. Change your vocabulary.
As you already know, for something new to come into our lives, we have to make room by getting rid of the old.
I become We. And You becomes Us.
Also, unless you’re ready to sign the papers, don’t use the “D” (divorce) word.
27. Have fun and enjoy your newlywed status.
You won’t be a newlywed forever. But let your newlywed bliss be lasting in your marriage.
The moment you say “I do” on your wedding day, you and your spouse become blissfully happy and excited about your future.
What happens from that moment onwards will determine how long this bliss will remain. Don’t let it fade away for any reason. The longer this bliss stays in your marriage and life, the happier you will both be as a married couple.
Every time you make a decision in how you react to something with your spouse will either cause you to grow together or push you farther apart.
28. Be proud of your spouse.
If you aren’t proud of your spouse, why did you get married in the first place?
29. Resolve your conflicts amicably.
Handle your conflicts, disagreements, arguments maturely and in a healthy way.
30. When you hear the statement “Just because you’re newlyweds…,” don’t let it discourage.
Or make you think your newlywed bliss will wear off after the first year.
As your marriage grows, it will become better, happier, and more lovely than it was in the beginning, If you both commit to working on your marriage.
31. Celebrate any wins, successes, awards, etc. together as a couple.
And have fun while you are at it!
Celebrate the small stuff as well as the big things.
Some funny advice for newlyweds
⇒ May all your ups and downs be under the sheets.
⇒ Always leave the toilet seat down.
⇒ Happy wife, happy life.
How a piece of simple marriage advice for newlyweds helped us
“You are on the same team. Either you win together, or you lose together.”
This simple, yet essential piece of marriage advice we received made a big difference in our marriage.
You see, during our first year, especially in the tough times, we didn’t know how to communicate effectively with each other. We were overwhelmed with everything; the fighting, arguing, blaming each other, stress, etc.
However, because of the marriage advice (above) we received as newlyweds, we were able to work together as a team on our communication struggles.
If you don’t have any couple to talk to, listen to the First Year Marriage Show podcast to learn from the first year stories of other married couples.
Even better, get a copy of our book for engaged and newly married couples, First Year of Marriage, to read today too.
Because this podcast and book will help you build a strong foundation for your marriage.
Note: We share many stories from our first year (the ups and downs, struggles, and much more) in our book.
Life is unpredictable!
Even though we received great marriage advice for newlyweds, it didn’t prevent us from having some really tough times that first year.
These tough times led to us seeking more marriage advice from marriage books, marriage podcasts, radio shows, etc.
Therefore, we highly recommend newly married couples check out this list of must-read books for newlyweds. Pick at least one of the books, buy or get it from your library, then read and apply what you learn.
Now:
Our best marriage advice for newlyweds
So what is the best marriage advice for couples? How do you know if the source you are receiving the marriage advice from is credible or not?
Adopt this rule of thumb that we use all the time: actions speak louder than words!
Learn from the married couples who have the healthy, happy and successful marriage you want for yours.
Because without the marriage advice we received before and after getting married, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
And our marriage would most likely not be as healthy, happy, and fulfilling as it is today.
Marriage advise from couples and people in unhealthy relationships
What if the couple giving you advice doesn’t have a healthy marriage? What if the person is divorced or never been married? Should you listen to their advice for newlyweds?
The short answer is yes.
Listen to all the marriage advice you receive. But only apply the relevant ones or what you believe will be good for your relationship. Because bad marriage advice can easily ruin your marriage.
So ponder over every marital advice you receive to see how it can negatively impact your marriage before you apply it. Also, discuss it with your partner. As you already know, two heads are better than one; get your partners opinion.
On the other hand, great marriage advice if implemented can improve your marriage and help you become a better spouse. You might not want to hear it, but if you know it will improve your relationship, practice it.
For us, we don’t actively seek marital advice from couples who have an unhealthy relationship. Even if they have been married for a long time.
Final thoughts
We hope our words of wisdom will help you improve your marriage because it has helped us in many ways.
Apply some, if not all of the newlywed advice we have shared with you in your marriage today. And you will be on your way to having a great marriage.
To all newly married couples, we say congratulations and welcome to married life!
Have fun, enjoy your lifelong companionship, and build the lasting marriage you desire.
Lastly, email us to let us know how our marriage advice for newlyweds has helped you and your relationship.
Enjoy your marriage, enjoy your life!
Your turn
What is the best marriage advice you received as a newlywed?
Related:
20 Marriage Lessons We Learned From Our First Year
How to Create a Monthly Budget After Marriage (And Stick to it)
Surviving the First Year of Marriage
How to Change Your Name After Marriage
How to Communicate with Your Spouse Without Fighting in 7 Simple Steps
P.S. Want to build a strong foundation for your marriage? Read this book today.
