When you’re going to get married, there are many things to prepare, from the wedding venue, makeup, dress, suits, catering, et cetera and et cetera! However, you need to remember that you shouldn’t forget to be mentally prepared for the days after your wedding: are you ready for marriage?

The dating game is challenging, and if you’ve met someone and clicked, it’s no surprise that you’d want to take your relationship to the next level. Unfortunately, just because your relationship goes well doesn’t always mean you’re ready for marriage. If you had a crystal ball, you’d ask one question: “Should I get married?” How can you know?

And to help you out, we’ve gathered five things you can do to mentally prepare yourself for being a husband or wife in a marriage. Hopefully, you’ll be ready for the ups and downs of the thrilling ride of your new life together.

Change ‘Me’ to ‘Us’ and Learn from Role-Model Couples

There’s no place to be selfish in marriage, so you must start adjusting your mindset from ‘I’ to ‘we.’ This doesn’t mean that you’ll be losing your identity or need to stop thinking about your personal happiness. It’s more about including your future spouse as part of your plan, dreams, and other things you want to do. Marriage is a partnership, and you must be on the same team.  So put aside your ego and start focusing on your life together. 

You can do this by looking at figure couples that set an excellent example of lasting marriage and commitment for the long term. Whether it’s your own parents, future mother-in-law, or if you have friends who have been married for a while. Ask them how they handle arguments and disagreements, how they balance work and marriage, and how they treat their spouse in good and bad times. Through the years, they must have found a secret or two on how to maintain their union. Their wisdom can guide you to act as a married couple and as a better individual.

Attend Premarital Classes and Start Planning Your Finances

Whether you’re in doubt thinking about marriage or if you feel like you can handle it, there’s no harm in getting essential knowledge from premarital courses. These programs usually have a counselor that can answer your questions and enlighten you with helpful insights. They can also help you overcome certain anxiety or fear before your wedding. Besides getting tips from your parents and friends, counselors can be neutral and non-bias, so you’ll have clear and objective marriage advice and information. 

In terms of finance, prepare for quite a shift, as you’ll have to handle household finance together and share your wealth with your spouse instead of only having your finances by yourself. Planning your financial life before getting married is likely to be one of the most important things, as money issues can be one of the main reasons for divorce. 

This should be done with your fiancé; open up and talk about your salary, investments, assets, or debts if you have any and share your long-term plans and goals. Once you both know what you expect from each other, you can start changing your money habits. This includes saving and avoiding spending impulsive money or putting off bills that can bundle up into debts.

Discuss Boundaries and Practice Forgiveness

You and your future husband or wife might have different ways of thinking, views and perspective and also specific wants and needs. To minimize friction in your new life together, make sure to talk about the boundaries beforehand. What’s okay and not okay for you to do after you get married? Can your spouse still be friends with their exes? When can you have a night out with your friends? Are you allowed to share personal issues with anyone besides your future spouse? Talk to them in detail and agree on the limits together. 

Besides talking about boundaries, forgiveness is also the key to a lasting marriage, so you should be prepared for it. Holding a grudge against your spouse will only hurt your relationship and offer negative vibes to your home. Instead, learn to forgive and look at the silver lining in the challenges you might encounter. This lets you learn from each other and grow together without holding any bitterness and resentment.

Keep an Open Mind, Talk About Children

You might have certain expectations after marriage, but remember that you shouldn’t expect everything will go according to your plan after getting married. There will be ups and downs and you need to be ready for it. Be flexible about it as there will be changes in your life, some that you might not expect from before, so you might need to be more adaptable. Have faith in your spouse and relationship so you won’t give up easily during hard times.

Note that once you exchange vows, people will start to ask when you’re expecting to have a baby. If you aren’t mentally prepared to talk about it. Let alone having babies, then it might be a difficult issue to handle. Again, we suggest discussing it with your fiancé. When you’ve understood each other, it will be easier for you to decide when and how your small family will expand and not stress by external pressure.

Take It Easy and Laugh it Off

See them not only as lovers but also as someone you can talk to about everything, share your problems and your passion, and also someone you can be yourself around. Just like friends, learn to create a positive atmosphere and laugh at some of your problems instead of handling them over-seriously.

We hope our tips above have opened your eyes to what to prepare for before you get married. In the end, treating each other as best friends is the best way to experience your new life together.