The honeymoon phase of marriage is the very definition of domestic bliss. There’s little to no fighting, you want to spend all your time with your new spouse and to be the perfect wife or husband to them.

During this phase, it’s hard to see why the people who have been giving you marriage advice for newlyweds think that marriage is hard. They must be doing something wrong!

Here’s the thing though, the honeymoon phase only lasts about six months to a year. You stop idealizing your partner and quickly realize that the person you married is not the person you thought you married. The vast difference between what it’s like to be married and what you thought it’d be like becomes very apparent.

Sadly, some couples get stuck in this “realization” phase and struggle to accept all the changes. They begin to feel trapped in the marriage and either emotionally disengage from each other or become really angry at each other.

However, other couples are able to accept it for what it is and embrace the more mature relationship that emerges from the honeymoon stage.

What to Do When the Honeymoon Phase Ends

Communication and mutual understanding are the keys to getting through the realization phase of marriage. Most of the unhappiness during this stage of marriage comes from unmet needs and lack of boundaries. To move past it, you must be willing to open up to each other about your needs, as well as let your partner know the things that bother you.

For instance, your partner will never know that you’d like a little more help around the house unless you communicate that. If you don’t take this opportunity to lay the ground rules for your marriage, it will come back to haunt you down the road.

It is also important to be understanding towards your new wife or husband. Just because they are not living up to your expectations doesn’t mean they’re at fault. It could be that your expectations were unrealistic and you need to come up with some new standards for your partner.

The most important piece of marriage advice for newlyweds here is that the longer you spend mourning the loss of what you thought was a perfect marriage, the longer you are going to be stuck in an unhappy marriage.