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Does It Feel Different?

Lisa Eirene

About Lisa Eirene Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

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28 Comments

  1. Courtney B

    You will have to let me know how that dance class goes! Brian and I have talked about it a few times, but we’ve never made a decision.

    Your top succulent photo is a Kalanchoe commonly referred to as “Mother of Millions”. Each one of those ruffles along the edge is a mini plant waiting to fall off and root. They are neat plants!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      How are your cuttings going? I am excited to give it a try!

      1. Courtney

        Most of them are doing well. We are out of the normal growing season, so it has been rather slow. I will text you pictures soon. Most of them are no bigger than the tip of a pencil right now.

        1. Lisa Eirene

          Very cool. I’m excited to give it a try at least.

  2. bethh

    I’m not married, but I had friends who were together for AGES (like a decade-plus) before they got married, and the husband phrased the difference in a very nice way. He said that before they got married, he knew he was going to spend his life with her, but now he IS spending his life with her. It’s a tiny little difference but it was very sweet.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Awww that is very sweet!
      I definitely have moments of extreme happiness and a feeling of security and closeness. It feels more like we are partners than before we got married. But overall it doesn’t feel super different…

  3. Lori

    No, never different really. Even 18 years later. John and I lived together for a few years before we got married. Our wedding planning didn’t really take much time, honestly. The worst part was doing favors the day before the wedding LOL!

    I kept my last name when we got married, so absolutely nothing changed as far as our entities went. It just was kind of fun to refer to each other as husband and wife. That was the only difference.

    Okay, there was one thing different. People started asking us when we were going to have kids, which they didn’t before we were married…

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Hahaha! We got that question at our RECEPTION. Seriously. People are chomping at the bit apparently. Slooooow down… 😉

  4. Joy @ WhatIWeighToday

    I’ve been thinking about being married a lot lately. My 9 year wedding anniversary is in two weeks. I don’t think I felt different “being married” in the weeks and months after my wedding but when I look back on that time, boy do I feel different now. Before I met my husband, and as of when we got married, I was never one for pet names. I had never called a significant other anything but their name. But some point in the last 9 nines I started calling my husband “honey” casually and all the time. When did that happen? In the first years of our marriage, I saw it as something perhaps temporary and fragile. I wondered if we had been wrong about each other and if our marriage would last. I know there are no guarantees in life, but at this point I don’t feel that way at all. I feel like we are an immutable fact of life, like breathing or gravity. I love him and appreciate him more every year. We had been together for 3 years when we got married. Maybe we should have waited longer. If we had, maybe I wouldn’t feel so different now. Maybe I would have worked out all my issues first. I don’t know if getting married helped me work them out or I would have come to this place without getting hitched.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      I think that’s a normal adjustment even if you’ve been together awhile. There were moments of panic where I thought “oh yeah, this is forever.” And suddenly forever seemed like a long time! It was scary, for sure, despite being together for 6 years. It became “real” if that makes sense. I don’t have any regrets, but I do have my own issues. Maybe you can relate. For me it’s more of feeling “partnered” and not 100% my own person anymore? Like I have to stop myself sometimes and remind myself that I should ask Michael’s opinion about stuff instead of just DOING something. Out of respect for our marriage and treating him as a partner. For example, talking about vacations with friends. We ask each other instead of telling each other…

      1. Joy @ WhatIWeighToday

        I can definitely relate. There was a part of me that didn’t want to be married at all! I still really value my independence but I definitely discuss all big decisions with my husband since we are a team!

        1. Lisa Eirene

          Before I moved in with Michael I had lived on my own for nearly 10 years (no roommates either). So it was a huge adjustment. I think I got that scary feeling out of my system back then. I can’t imagine how I’d feel had we NOT lived together before getting married! Talk about stressful adjustments!

  5. Jess

    We had a whirlwind romance. 5 months before we moved in, 3 weeks after that we were engaged, 10 months after that we were married, and sometimes I can’t believe we are together, let alone married! Things have changed while staying the same. I realise that doesn’t make any sense!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Wow! Whirlwind is right! That’s kind of romantic.

  6. Jessica

    Congrats! Prior to dating the Rman, I was married at 28 to my ex-husband for 4 years and together with him for 6. The things I noticed when I got married was a feeling of loss when I wrote my new last name (i took his name), people asking us about when we were going to have kids, trying to get used to the words wife and husband, and having to seek his approval or buy in on purchases for the house. For example when we were checking out silverware and furniture I had to make sure it fit him too. He was 6’2″ and I’m a foot shorter. I know it sounds silly but it would get on my nerves when i had decided on liking this furniture or flatware and I couldn’t outright buy it because I had to think about another person. (We had lived together for 1 year but stuff didn’t come up because we knew the stuff was our own stuff. Once we had to consolidate and starting purchasing stuff together as husband and wife was when things got a little complicated. I wish you and Michael the best. 🙂

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Thanks Jess! Yes, it is super weird still getting used to my new name. I screw it up all the time and often have to scribble it out and do it over. LOL
      I totally get what you mean about asking the other person to weigh in on household purchases. It’s weird.

  7. Beth

    I think the legal aspect of it makes it different – now you are family. And his family is your family. While you may have felt that way before now it is legal. So if he has nieces and nephews you are now Aunt Lisa. I think it’s that stuff that is the hardest to get used to.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Yes, agreed. It’s now legal! Haha! But i love it. It’s going well.

      1. Beth

        It’s all good and things keep changing and evolving. Today is 17 years ago we got engaged!

  8. emmaclaire

    It did feel different after getting married, although I had been married before. We also lived together, and we were in a committed relationship, but I think taking that last step shows the rest of the world how serious your commitment is. And it’s not that we needed their approval, it was more like putting that final piece in the jigsaw puzzle of our life together, you know? And it was funny, I was out of town for work for the week before our wedding, got back into town in time for the rehearsal dinner, so we hadn’t been alone together for almost 10 days. By the time we hit the hotel after the reception, I actually got an attack of shyness, like “who IS this guy?” Too funny. But it all worked out, we’re at 23 years and going strong!

    1. emmaclaire

      BTW, you and Michael just look so happy in the wedding photos – congrats to you both!

      1. Lisa Eirene

        Thank you! We got the photos back from the photographer and will be sharing the best ones soon. 🙂

    2. Lisa Eirene

      Congrats on 23 years!!
      Awww, that was so sweet you hadn’t seen each other in 10 days. I kind of wish we could have had more than one night apart to make it more…dramatic I guess? But to be honest, being apart for one night kind of sucked!

  9. Kelly @ Finding a Skinnier Me

    My husband and I were just talking about dance lessons recently as well! The husband agreed to it, so I was pretty excited. You will have to tell me how yours go.

    I don’t think I felt much different. It was hard to use the word husband instead of boyfriend, partner or fiance. But I got used to it pretty fast. I think the hardest thing was signing my new name. I would accidentally sign my maiden name over and over again then have to scratch it out or get a new form so I could sign my married name. That one took a bit of adjusting but as for being a wife, I lived with my husband for two years beforehand so not much changed 🙂

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Yep, signing the new name is hard. And a few times at work I had to introduce myself and I stammered because I was like, should I use my old name because that’s how I’m known at work or use my new name…?!?!

  10. Biz

    Well you know I met and married my husband within six months of meeting, and this December we will have been married 14 years!

    I never felt any different – in fact, on the night I met him, I already knew we would get married – kind of weird, but hey, it worked!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Honestly, I had a random thought like that when I first met Michael–that we’d get married some day. It was weird because we weren’t even dating yet when that thought came to me!

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