How to Settle Into The First Year Of Marriage: A Guide For Adventurous Newlyweds

Photo by Melike B

If you’re the adventurous types—the spontaneous, always-up-for-a-trip, let’s-live-out-of-a-backpack-for-six-months kind of couple—it’s not about “settling down.” It’s about learning how to settle in. Big Difference.

Create Rituals That Reflect Your Lifestyle

Not everything needs to be a grand romantic gesture. Sometimes it’s just waking up simultaneously, making coffee with no words exchanged, and knowing—deep in your bones—you’re building something. A life. A rhythm. Something shared. And no, you don’t have to start journaling together every morning at sunrise unless that’s your thing. But something is grounding in having small rituals you both lean on.

Keep Exploring - Together

Marriage isn’t the finish line. It’s not where adventure goes to die. If anything, it should expand your curiosity, your desire to see more, taste more, live deeper. Go. Travel. And don’t just explore places. Explore each other. Ask new questions, even if you think you already know all the answers. Discover the version of your partner that only exists now, in this moment, post-wedding, in the early days of this forever thing you just started.

Communicate With Curiosity, Not Criticism

You’re going to bump into the rough edges. It’s unavoidable. One of you folds laundry like it’s origami, the other treats socks like abstract art. The way you load the dishwasher will one day feel like a personal attack. It’s fine. What matters is how you talk about it. Not with eye-rolls or that voice that sounds a lot like a parent, but with genuine curiosity. Try, “Hey, is there a reason you always do that?” instead of “Why do you always do that?” It’s the same question, but the tone changes everything. You don’t need perfect communication. You need honest ones. Soft ones. The kind where you both leave the conversation feeling a little lighter, not heavier.

Build, Don’t Blend

You’re not two people becoming one. You’re two people creating a third thing—us—that never existed before. And that “us” deserves to be its own unique, slightly weird, occasionally messy, beautifully personal creation.

Forget what other marriages look like. Forget what your parents did. Or didn’t do. Forget the couple on Instagram with the matching outfits and suspiciously clean camper van. You get to decide what your marriage looks like. So build it. Piece by piece. Morning by morning. Memory by memory.

Celebrate The Small Wins

No one talks about the quiet victories. Like realizing you both instinctively bought each other snacks on the same day. Or navigating a disagreement without storming off or shutting down. That stuff counts. That stuff is the glue. From the moment you have that epic wedding work on going on the most epic adventure together.

Not everything has to be epic. Honestly, most of it won’t be. But if you look closely, those everyday moments—the ones that don’t make it to social media? They’re gold. They’re the reason you’ll one day look back and say, “Yeah, that first year? We did good.”

The first year of marriage isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about staying curious. Staying open. It’s about remembering that love isn’t a destination—it’s a map. And you get to draw it together, one little detour at a time.