These days, many couples live together, sleep together, and spend a lot of time getting to know each other before their wedding day. And still, getting married is more than just a symbolic step — it can change a lot.
To learn more about those potential changes, we checked out a Reddit thread where hundreds of people posted about the biggest ways their relationship changed after marriage — and how they adjusted. Some of those changes are more superficial (one Redditor posted about getting used to wearing a wedding ring); others go deeper.
We pulled out the most compelling and most surprising responses, so you can know what to expect if you're thinking about tying the knot.
SEE ALSO: 5 ways to reignite the passion in a tired relationship
Combining bank accounts
"We lived together before getting married but still had separate bank accounts,"says killary. "We merged them when we married and it was very strange for a while."
magictravelblog added, "It is a bit odd the first time you view your bank transactions and see some other person doing stuff."
'My husband started referring to me with other people as "my wife"'
trickyone writes, "Silly I know, but it shock[ed] me harder than anything."
'You talk about money. A lot.'
we_are_sex_bobomb says they struggled early on in their marriage to make ends meet:
"I realized pretty quickly that I was going to have to let her help me manage the money and I couldn't do [it] all myself. That was extremely difficult for me, having been single for a long time. I never would have imagined that just sharing your monthly budget with someone could require so much trust and humility but for me it did."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider