Above you see me and my husband on one of the happiest days of our life, our wedding day. It is now 12 years later and we are still happily married and going strong. Every day we grow in our love, appreciation and understanding of each other.
However, I will be perfectly honest … it has not been easy. I know that when we both went into this we thought that once we said “I do” we thought that it should be like a fairy tale. Everything sunshine, rainbows, and happiness all of the time. No problems or fights … just wonderful perfection all of the time. Boy were we ever wrong! Ha ha ha! Life is not a fairy tale, and marriage is certainly no exception to that rule!
I will say this, my hubby and I made an agreement before our wedding day, there was one word that would not be in our vocabulary … divorce. We personally decided that divorce, would not be an option for us ever. Now, we believe that there are times and situations when divorce is the correct choice. However, we knew that we would not take that option just because things got tough, and believe me … they did. All relationships go through seasons, highs and lows, or however you choose to word it. It seems like in this day and age more people get divorced than stay married. So many people were surprised to hear that we were celebrating our 12th anniversary. I heard things like “wow, that’s a really long time” and “oh that’s a big accomplishment.” Yes it is an accomplishment and we are very proud to have been married for 12 years. However, this is still the beginning … we have so much longer to go.
We stood in front of God, our family, and pastor and vowed to love, honor, and cherish each other til DEATH to us part. Larry is 42, and I am 33, I certainly hope we are nowhere near death, so we have many more years ahead of us in our marriage and life together. You don’t say “til I get sick of your crap” or “til I realize this was a mistake” or “til we can’t work together anymore”, or have I just not been to one of those weddings yet?
Marriage is about each and every day saying “I still do.” It is not always going to be easy and sometimes it will more than likely be really hard. But when you promise to love, honor and cherish each other … it is worth the work and effort. During those tough times remind yourself of all of the happy times that you have shared and pull from those memories to feed positive energy into whatever struggle you are dealing with at the time. Remember, once you work through the hard times your marriage, bond, and love will be even stronger on the other side of the struggle.
I hear so much talk in the world about the state of marriage in this country. How high the divorce rate is, and laws on same-sex marriage seem to be the majority of what I hear. But then you also hear so much about which celebrity or politician is cheating or getting divorced this week. The high divorce rate breaks my heart. I think of all of those broken homes, and broken hearts. Whether there are children involved or not, there are still people hurting when a marriage ends in divorce. Sure the husband and wife are hurting, but what about the family and friends of the couple? The divorce affects them too! I have several friends whose marriages have ended in divorce. Several of those situations I feel were justified reasons for divorce. However, there are many that I feel could have been resolved if the couple had just been willing to work through those tough times and come out stronger on the other side.
Same sex marriage is a huge issue currently. I personally feel very strongly about this issue. I have heard people say that allowing same-sex couples to marry is an attack on the institute of marriage. However, I do not agree with this at all. I think the attack on marriage is the multitude of traditional couples who get married and then get tired of trying and give up when the going gets tough. Gay marriage isn’t an attack on traditional marriage anymore than the traditional couples getting married and divorced so fast it would make your head spin. Not to mention the majority of the famous people who can’t seem to stay married or stick to their vows for any amount of time. If we are going to treat homosexual couples with such contempt that we deny them the right to be in a bond such as marriage if that is what they choose, then what are we going to start to deny people next? I mean, homosexuals are people after all!
I know, I am kind of jumping all over the place with this post tonight, and I apologize. My husband and I work hard to have the marriage that we have. It is so easy to love each other, but being married is not always the easiest task. Every day life can weigh you down and stress you out and make it difficult to put work into anything else at the end of the day. But your marriage is something that needs to nourished and fed each day. I read a quote from Andre Maurois the other day “A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.” And that quote really hit a chord with me. Larry and I each need to have our needs met each day. Somedays he may need a little extra from me, and somedays I may need a little extra from him. However, each day we both have to work to meet each others needs. Filling our marriage cup each and every day could be a chore, but we choose to see it as a joy to breathe that life into our marriage.
This post is the result of me being home sick today. I had no kids at the house to distract me from my thoughts and I allowed my mind to wander and think about life and these ramblings are the result of my wandering mind today.
I will leave you with a pic that I found on Lifequotes.com. It is a recipe for a happy marriage. Feel free to comment, share, or bach me for this post. I know not everyone will agree with my points of view, and I am totally ok with that. 🙂 Hope this post finds you all happy, healthy and well.
spinningonthewebb 