<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"    The moment after I vacuum-packed my wedding dress and put my unworn lingerie away, everyone&amp;#039;s favorite question became, &amp;quot;What does it feel like to be married?&amp;quot; The truth? For me, it&amp;#039;s not much different than being engaged. Like the other 48 percent of women in America, I lived with my partner before he put a ring on it. (Sorry, Beyonce\u2026 and Mom.) I worked through the growing pains of cohabitation long ago, so I haven&amp;#039;t encountered too many changes during my first wedded year. But there have been lots of little surprises for which no bridal mag prepared me. 1. What&amp;#039;s in a name? Lots of paperwork. It turns out your name doesn&amp;#039;t miraculously change itself, not before you fill out loads of forms. I&amp;#039;ve been too busy performing my wifely duties (read: procrastinating) to deal with my driver&amp;#039;s license, passport, and fro-yo-shop rewards cards. I also didn&amp;#039;t expect that keeping my name by default would invite so much feedback from folks who either applaud me for not subscribing to patriarchal marital norms or question why I haven&amp;#039;t merged identities with my husband yet. Truthfully, I&amp;#039;ve been ready to retire my name since I made my first communion and the nuns questioned what a Schwartz was doing at St. Mary&amp;#039;s, but I just haven&amp;#039;t gotten around to it yet. That doesn&amp;#039;t mean that I&amp;#039;m any less committed to my husband. There are sites that allegedly make the process easier, like HitchSwitch and Name Change Express\u2014I&amp;#039;d try them, but I haven&amp;#039;t got a stamp. 2. You&amp;#039;ll still fight over Netflix.  Our silly squabbling continues despite scribbling some vows on a doily. Only now, I feel even more embarrassed after our mostly hunger-fueled fights. When we were dating, our most heated arguments ended in a slammed door and me threatening to leave him. Now, instead of dangling the D-word, I take a breath, eat a carb, and realize that this will all blow over, because it has to. We&amp;#039;re not just playing at partnering anymore. We&amp;#039;re in this for real, and no argument about takeout will change that, though, in the heat of the moment, that&amp;#039;s difficult to remember. The key seems to be figuring out what other issues could be lurking\u2014and in my case, it&amp;#039;s typically lack of food coupled with neediness. We&amp;#039;re working on talking things out more, and when all else fails, my husband has learned to keep a baggy of almonds around for me, just in case I start to throw stuff. 3. You feel less guilty spending his money.  When we were engaged, my now-husband gave me one of his credit cards for emergencies (and manicures). I&amp;#039;ve made an intern&amp;#039;s salary for most of our relationship, so I was grateful that he trusted me not to abuse the privilege. Though he has always technically supported me, he&amp;#039;s never made me feel bad about it\u2014he says we&amp;#039;re a team. Now that we&amp;#039;re married, it&amp;#039;s finally sunk in. What I contribute goes toward our future together, not to repaying past debts to him. &amp;quot;The more you do financially to foster a sense of oneness, the better,&amp;quot; says Matt Bell, author of Money and Marriage. &amp;quot;One of the leading causes of divorce is having separate financial lives. To be in a fully-committed marriage, you need to share your money and have full transparency.&amp;quot; So schedule a monthly money date during which you remind each other of the goals you&amp;#039;re pursuing, like a vacation you&amp;#039;re saving up for, and then review how successful you&amp;#039;ve been in working toward it. If you spot blips, chat about where you can cut back over a not-too-expensive bottle of wine. 4. Saying &amp;quot;husband&amp;quot; without squirming takes time. It took me a good two years to get comfortable with the term &amp;quot;fianc\u00E9,&amp;quot; so I&amp;#039;m on track to have &amp;quot;husband&amp;quot; roll off my tongue by the time we reach our leather anniversary (that&amp;#039;s the third year, for those of you not up on gift-giving traditions). Every time I utter it, I sound like an ESL speaker. I watch people glance curiously at my left hand, thinking that I&amp;#039;m too young/mid-size/brunette to be married. No matter how I phrase it\u2014&amp;quot;hubby,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;cohort,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;heterolifemate&amp;quot;\u2014it always sounds awkward. Experts say this is normal, though, which I&amp;#039;m sure the &amp;quot;hubster&amp;quot; will be happy to hear. 5. You&amp;#039;ll never use the fancy stuff you register for. That baby pink Cuisinart I wanted so badly is collecting dust somewhere at my in-laws&amp;#039; house. Why? Because it takes up my entire kitchen. Also, I don&amp;#039;t know how to cook. It turns out becoming a wife doesn&amp;#039;t instantly make you a domestic goddess. I wish someone at Bloomingdale&amp;#039;s would&amp;#039;ve mentioned that when I was getting zap-happy with their scanner gun. However, for fear of falling into a first-year rut, I decided to stop resenting the bread maker for taking up valuable closet space and break it out. The bread tasted like feet, but we did have fun throwing flour at each other like characters in a bad rom-com. 6. It&amp;#039;s the &amp;quot;freshman 15&amp;quot; part two. Basically, you&amp;#039;ll gain all of the weight you lost for your wedding back and then some. If you&amp;#039;re anything like me, it&amp;#039;ll happen within three months. Sure, it didn&amp;#039;t help that post-wedding, I lived in the Middle East and subsisted almost exclusively on falafel, but I would have packed on the pounds stateside, too. I lost incentive. Now that I&amp;#039;m back in my standard, obnoxiously average shape, I wish someone had told me not to give up on eating well and exercising so quickly. Just like in college, what took a year of hard work was gone with a few Funfetti cakes and too many Doritos. To motivate myself, I&amp;#039;ve scheduled a beach vacation with a group of my most toned friends, who, unlike my husband, will judge my tankini-bod. 7. Having a good sex life takes more than buying lingerie. You actually have to put in effort. When given the choice between eating mac and cheese and getting frisky, the pasta has started to win out. Though the books will tell you that reigniting passion is as simple as lighting candles and sending flirty texts, that doesn&amp;#039;t work all too well when you&amp;#039;re not in the mood to set the mood. I didn&amp;#039;t expect to become a marital clich\u00E9 so early on, but as sexpert Ian Kerner explains, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s natural for newlyweds to experience dips in libido because they&amp;#039;re dealing with a whole set of stressors that they didn&amp;#039;t encounter before, and then once they settle into the routine of marriage, they become complacent.&amp;quot; Don&amp;#039;t get me wrong, I&amp;#039;m with a hunky dude, but I now have an unlimited amount of evenings to show him just how spicy I think he is. So why start tonight? On the other hand, I don&amp;#039;t want my dutiful man to feel like he signed on for a lifetime of noodles in bed. Like forcing myself to go the gym because I know it&amp;#039;s good for me, this is another area in which I need to actively make an effort. For partly lazy, partly prude gals like me, Kerner suggests signing up for a fantasy box subscription. No word on what to do once it comes in the mail, but I have a hunch it&amp;#039;ll involve a lot of liquid courage. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/a17255/first-year-of-marriage/>