The Just Married Blues

The just married blues. No, not the 'I married the wrong man' blues, or the 'I'm $20,000 in the holes' blues; the blues that are much more common to new wives. The blues that hit when you realize it is all over. The day you have been dreaming of for months, or maybe since you were a little girl. The day you, and the one you have chosen to spend your life with, are the receiver of heaps love and attention from those you hold dear. The planning, the stress, the excitement, are all for the benefit of this one day. And now that day has passed.

As a newlywed, 8 days as of today, I had dismissed talk of the after wedding depression as ridiculous. I would have just married the man of my dreams in front of all my loved ones - what could be better? But two days after the wedding it hit me. This sinking melancholy, the wedding was over. There would be no more butterflies as I selected dresses or place cards. No inner thrill when someone asked about some aspect of my wedding. No secure belief that if my relationship went sour I could call it all off. Now the serious time had begun. I was a wife. I had a new job. It was reality.

The wedding blues are a reminiscent of postpartum depression, to a thankfully much lesser degree. You are so happy and have so much to look forward too. After it arrives, you are left with a down feeling you don't fully understand and find difficult to relate. You feel guilty to tell your spouse, because they might see your down mood as a sign of regrets. When they just danced like wild woman on your wedding day, it feels wrong to impart in your best friends you are feeling low. So much time anticipating and planning goes into something so massive, and when the day is behind you are lacking a place to put all that excitement and energy. This lack of focus invents itself into the blues, but the blues in a new bride is hard to take.