Post- Wedding Blues
— -- It's a dream of many little girls… that "someday her prince will come."
But the whirl of planning "the biggest day of their lives" can drive some brides to the extreme
Marnie Hinze got married 3 months ago inside a quaint Cape Cod church with over a 100 guests, as the sound of bagpipes escorted her down the aisle - it was a picture perfect ceremony."Planning a wedding and getting married is both the best time, and in many ways the most stressful and in many ways worst time as well, Hinze said.
After the wedding Marnie and her new husband Mark flew off for their long-awaited fantasy trip to the Caribbean.
"The honeymoon was fabulous and very relaxing and fun, perfect, just like the wedding, said Marnie.
But once the honeymoon was over, Marnie says she emotionally crashed."I felt bad because it was over and now real life was starting and now I had to think about kids and buying a house and all of the major things that come after getting married and that was kind if scary".
Marnie fell into a post wedding depression, a condition afflicting one in ten new spouses. After spending a year or more focusing on one day, they let down once that day is over, can lead to confusion, frustration and for some clinical depression.
Her husband Mark was perplexed. "I really didn't understand why she felt that way. It bothered me because I thought it was something wrong that I was causing her to be different and sad or depressed", he said.
Marine could not understand. "Everyone's telling you should be having fun, this is the best time of your life before you have kids, enjoy it, live it up and it felt like what's wrong with me that I feel like this".
Certainly Marnie is not alone. Sheryl Paul, a psychologist and bridal counselor and the author of the book "The Conscious Bride" and now "The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner."
"Some depression after the wedding is normal. It's a natural outcome of spending so much time on one day and also you're in a transition to a new phase of life. So a week or two of feeling down is normal, but if after that you're having trouble getting up, feeling angry with your husband, there's a problem. ", says Paul.
The key to getting over a post wedding letdown is to seek help and talk about your feelings with friends and family. After all, they experiencing and adjusting to the new phase in your life as well.
On Pauls website (www.consciousweddings.com) she lists key points to help recognize and deal with post wedding depressions:
"The truth is, as much as you are gaining by preparing to begin a shared life with the person you love most in the world, you are also losing something, and this loss needs to be recognized. It is a law of nature that there can be no gain without a loss: summer always follows the shedding of autumn and the barrenness of winter; an inhale is always preceded by an exhale. so it is with psychological transitions."
"We tend to think of the wedding and all that surrounds it as only a happy time. While there is much joy in creating a day that celebrates and consecrates the love between two people, there is also an underbelly that we tend to ignore. When asked, most people will say that their wedding process included as much chaos, grief, and confusion as joy and bliss. Yet they also felt that they had to keep those emotions hidden. because expression of the "darker" side of the wedding is not encouraged, women and their families commonly transfer the difficult emotions."
"Women have been conditioned to view the wedding as only a gain, one that we have been anxiously anticipating from the time we are little girls, and to even mention the words loss and wedding in the same breath is a taboo. but if you are going to meet your partner at the altar fully prepared to start your marriage on a healthy foundation, you need to be willing to recognize what you are giving up."