Last month I discussed the relationship questions that often get overlooked once a couple becomes engaged. Once you’ve told your family and friends the news and shown the ring, the focus naturally turns to planning the wedding. This is normal and expected.

I’ll admit it. The wedding day is one of the most important days in a person’s life. It’s the end of a dream that many women have held in their hearts for many years. Yes, it is important to men, too, but it’s the women that often play “dress up” as a young girl. Many brides have been flower girls and junior bridesmaids - brides in training. Some women have denied it, but I know, they all ponder their own wedding day with anticipation, excitement and expectations. With so much energy spent on wedding planning, there is often little time left to discuss the one thing that’s even more important than the wedding… and that’s the marriage.

Now that you’ve finally found each other and want to be together forever, what does forever look like? No really, what will your lives be like from the moment you wake up in the morning until those final moments when you fall asleep at night? If you and yours were to separately jot down the moments to an average day, what would it look like? Not a perfect day, mind you, but an average, ordinary day like the rest of us. Would he start his day off making a pot of coffee for the both of you or would you get up early to make a warm meal for him? Who takes the first shower? Who’s the one to make the bed? If it’s you and he doesn’t help or care about that kind of thing, will you resent his “obvious” lack of concern for your feelings about a neatly made bed? What about his desire to watch the morning news when there’s so much to do before you both leave for work? If one of you is a morning person and the other is not, how do you plan to deal?

The point is this. You think you know each other by now but how well do you really know each other. What I mean is, if you truly want to live happily ever after (or at least happily more than unhappily ever after), you need to be prepared.

Up until now, you’ve always been a part of someone else’s family (I’m referring to first time brides here). You’ve lived in the family you were born in, adopted by, and/or perhaps lived in foster care. You may have lived with roommates and/or by yourself as an adult (college dorms… let’s not go there). Now that you’re getting married, you’re starting your own family.

For the first time in your life, you get to choose your new family. Yes, a husband and wife is a new family and you need to begin thinking about that. If one or both of you already have children, that’s even more reason to get ready.

If you’re very close to your family, you need to recognize that your new family is your new priority. Yes, you still love mom and dad and everybody else. However, you can’t expect your spouse to just go along with the traditional ways you’ve dropped everything to help out both your friends and family in the past. Your new family needs you, too. I’ll admit that the first year is especially difficult in determining where “me, “us” and everyone else begins and ends. My best suggestion is to explain to those you love is that you’re new at this marriage thing. Tell them that you still love and care for them and they are still an important part of your life. You know some things will change because you’re part of a new family now. That’s unavoidable. Some people may not like change. Just remember, you didn’t get married to make others feel bad. You got married because it was important to you and it makes you feel good. It’s your life and you deserve to be happy.