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Wellness Wednesday for April 8, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm getting married this week. I am getting more and more nervous as the date arrives, but I don't have any doubt that she's the right person. We started dating in college and have been together ever since. I feel very lucky that we got to grow up together, instead of meeting later in our lives.

I don't post that often so you probably won't know me, but I've been reading every week and posting intermittently since the move to /r/themotte in 2019. I'm incredibly grateful to this place for being what it is, and to the people here who keep it active and interesting. I wanted to share with everyone since I'm usually very private, but I also would welcome any advice you have for the transition to married life, or more generally for staying happy together for the rest of our lives.

Congratulations!

The advice that I always give people is that most of marriage is actually "roommate stuff." Be a good roommate, help with the dishes or laundry or whatever, keep your spouse informed of what your plans are and a lot of the other stuff will go smoothly.

I guess the other thing I would say is don't hedge, go all-in - be honest, invite honesty, be a good listener and understand that sometimes you will do best not to take things personally. And don't underestimate the value of physical intimacy as something that will keep a marriage sustained. Genuinely put the other party first, not because you are a doormat (and you may need to hold them accountable because you are seeking their good) but because you love them and want what is best for them.

I've been married for about a decade and I've been very happy. My wife and I have stuck to the above and neither of us have "felt" any sort of post-honeymoon come down. If anything we've grown and gotten better as a team. And I think you can do the same.

God bless!

The advice that I always give people is that most of marriage is actually "roommate stuff".

People claiming that friendship and romance are qualitatively (not just quantitatively) different in shambles.

Ha! I would not say that there's not a qualitative difference but I think being spouses is much easier if you are also friends.