Okay, so maybe marriage is not a hardship, but it's definitely not a walk in the park either!  We officially lived together for about a year before getting married, unofficially even longer than that.  That is, my mail got sent to his address for a little less than a year before marriage.  It's all about the mailing address to Mr. Hubby.  Since we'd been cohabitating, we thought that maybe that first year of marriage people say is so easy will be done with - we've been through it all!  Not exactly.  There's something very different about living together before and after marriage.  And we're experiencing the first year right now.  There are lots of ups and downs that are just unexpected.

Here are a few of my quick thoughts about what has been difficult:

-Changing my name.  I almost refused to sign my new last name on the marriage certificate after our ceremony.  It's just a very difficult change!  My old last name just had such a flow...  Now I have a last name that may be common on the west side of Michigan but is foreign to anyone over here.  And it doesn't have the same ring.  But as hubby says, it's my name now too, so I guess I need to be proud of it..

-Knowing that in order to break up, you would need to get a divorce.  As silly as it is, it's both and good and bad thing.  But a divorce seems alot worse than just an ended relationship.  Most people have break-ups, but not as many seem to have a divorce, especially not as many twenty-somethings.

-Habits that you just nonchalantly blew off before the marriage now are not so little.  The silly things start to annoy you alot more.  Some of the big things do too.

These are the main things that I can think of right now about how marriage is a lot different than a relationship.