If embarking on married life is like sailing uncharted waters without a map, the log of prior voyagers may help.
With that in mind, author Curtis Pesmen wrote “Your First Year of Marriage,” (Fireside, $11) which explores the venture from Day 1 to Day 365 in stories from 75 newly married couples and a raft of therapists.
“It’s more of a why than a how-to,” says Pesmen, health and features editor at Self magazine and author of two other books. “And it is a what-to-expect. It answers the question `Am I normal for thinking these things and are we normal?’ “
What couples are thinking may include secrets kept from one another about the past, financial woes, a loathing of one another’s furnishings, sexual expectations and the age-old in-law complaints.
“Most couples get through the wedding and think nothing could be more important, but they come back and fight,” he says.
Pesmen–himself a newlywed when he wrote the book–chose to focus on the first 12 months of marriage because it’s an overlooked market and `because that’s when patterns get cast if not in concrete then at least in plaster.”
Greatest among the first-year pitfalls, says the author, are believing everything will be wedding-day perfect without effort and that marriage itself will fix any festering problems such as religious, financial and how-to-allot-free-time differences.
Keep the faith, he advises. “Usually by talking things get better.”