by Ruth Woodhouse

Created on: April 15, 2008

Of course you can be yourself after marriage. You should always be yourself. If you cannot be yourself in marriage, then there is something seriously wrong with the relationship. Nobody should marry a person with whom there is any level of dissatisfaction - or else the relationship is surely doomed from the start.

Both individuals in any marriage ought to love each other unconditionally - just as they are ("warts and all", as the saying goes). In fact they should be able to overlook each other's faults and failings, at least most of the time, and focus on the things they love about their husband or wife.

If anything marriage should give you the liberty, fulfillment and completeness to be able to express the essential you more than ever before. That is if you are united with your soul mate, have been honest, unpretentious and genuine with him or her all along, and are truly the person he or she fell in love with. Why should you not be yourself? If your spouse didn't genuinely love you just as you are, then they would not have wanted to commit to spending the rest of their life with you - would they? Well surely that's how it is in the majority of cases anyway.

Of course you will find out new things about each other as you live together under the same roof, with all the pressures, stresses and little annoyances and irritations of life. You will both have some adjusting to do as you learn more about the best and worst qualities and habits each other has. Some of these may not have been obvious before - but you can't cover them up and pretend to be something you're not.

Sure you will need to do some giving and taking, make some compromises and be prepared to even make some modifications to the way you have always done things. This is in the best interests of both of you. It will promote harmony and happiness in your relationship and your home life as time goes by. But that's just what we all have to do at various stages in our lives anyway - and what else would one expect when taking such a momentous step in life? After all, you are bringing two individuals together - and no matter how compatible a couple are, there will inevitably be at least a few things that have to be worked out between you both as you get down to the nitty-gritty of life. That doesn't mean that essentially you are not the same person you always were.

There may well be other changes that take place, either in the short or long term, just because you have entered a whole new stage of your life.

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