Justin and I celebrated 10 years of marriage in May with a few nice words spoken to each other and hand-written cards. We really don’t make a big fuss about holidays or anniversaries. Well, except for birthdays. I tend to make a big fuss out of birthdays.
I can genuinely say that marriage to him has been one of the greatest joys in my life. Our marriage has been generally easy, with occasional difficulties like any long-term relationship would have. I think a lot of the ease comes from the deep respect that we both have for each other, as well as true love.
We met in college when we were both working on our undergraduate degrees. He was a bit older since he had spent a few years in the Air Force, but we had a philosophy class together and fell for each other pretty fast. I wrote all about our love story here if you have any interest in reading that! While we certainly don’t have everything figured out, I will say that I believe we did one thing right from the very start of our marriage:
We are explicitly clear on our expectations about something, and share those thoughts & hopes with each other.
I think this is important for any marriage, but especially a marriage with children involved. It became more important as we had more children to have a very clear expectation with each other on the childcare front. We both have hobbies and enjoy doing things alone “just for ourselves” so making sure that we can give each other that time is essential to ...