Six Lessons From Six Years of Marriage

This weekend we celebrated six years of marriage. Once again, I always come back to that dichotomy of not believing that six years have already flown by while also feeling like it has already been so much longer than six years. Curtis is my person, hands down, no doubt. I am so grateful for our marriage and the many blessings that have come along with it. In the spirit of these past six years, I want to share six things I have learned about love and commitment to another person.

Friendship (and laughter) is a strong foundation. Committed love definitely has many elements that play into it – attraction, trust, vulnerability, intimacy, an alignment of values, selflessness, mutual respect, and the list goes on. But I truly believe that the foundation of it all is friendship. My husband is truly my best friend – the one singular person that I could spend an endless amount of time with and never get sick of. The person that I can unashamedly be myself with and never fear rejection or judgement. The person that I can sit with in silence and never feel uncomfortable around. The person that I can let my imagination run wild with who only ever digs the the dream holes deeper. He is my person.

And with friendship must come laughter. I truly feel that laughter sometimes builds more emotional intimacy than heartfelt conversations (although a good friendship safely allows those to exist too). If you can laugh with each other – and sometimes at each other – then it makes the other stuff pretty easy.

It’s okay to go to bed angry. The age-old advice is to not do this. But a friend of ours wrote in our wedding card that it’s ok to go to bed angry and I’m glad that they did. Now that we are six years in, I couldn’t agree more. Being in a relationship with someone else is not always easy and differences come up in communication styles and past experiences that influence how we argue with each other. Sometimes you really do need that time to process and think through a conflict before rushing to a resolution for the sake of a resolution. More often than not, a little sleep can only help a frustrating situation.

We will change and so we must expect that our marriage will change too. I’ve been realizing that we should never have the expectation that we are always the same – we are all constantly evolving on a physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual level and this is a good thing. Your identity is not singular or fixed, and since you are changing, the way you experience life with another person is also not singular or fixed. Instead of resisting the change, embrace it! It’s actually fun to adapt and grow together, so long as you both recognize that this is and will happen. Holding on to expectations is often your worst enemy.

Some things (big or small) that may change the way we function in our marriage are job changes, our hobbies and interests, adding in a kid, adding in another kid, personal development, hardships, mental illness, physical illness, pets, and the change in seasons. It’s tempting to set up hard and fast rules, like for example, that you always do this chore and your husband always does another. But the reality is that sometimes we need to adjust how we work together and shift or compromise as needed. If we hold on too rigidly, it’s easy for resentment to brew and boil over. 

Along with this, it’s important to know that sometimes we will have seasons where one of us is carrying the load while the other isn’t capable of contributing as much. It has been valuable for me to recognize that these are just that – seasons – and that this experience will not always be the case. It is important to maintain really open communication when this happens though and to constantly check in and adjust when you can.

You will always be learning how to communicate better. Even six years in, I still have to remind myself that my husband is his own person and he does not think the same way that I think or express his thoughts in the same way that I express mine. There are always ways to improve on how you communicate with each other to ensure you are both feel heard and understood. It does not come naturally and takes effort, intention, learning, and practice.

Love only does get sweeter with time. I was convinced that I couldn’t love Curtis more than I did on our wedding day, but my love has only grown with time. You always hear other married couples talk about the honeymoon period and how smitten you are with each other, and while that is true, the more we settle into living our lives totally intertwined, the more I find myself deeply in love with my husband. The more we share and experience life, the sweeter it feels to be doing it together.

There are always days when we don’t feel connected. But there are also days when I look out the window and unexpectedly see my handsome husband through a fresh set of eyes while he is tending our yard or holding our daughter and I just feel blown away that this is my life. The more time we share together, the more satisfied and in love I feel. 

And I know this will last for a lifetime because I saw the exact same thing in my grandparents’ relationship. They had such a sweet, sweet love that only seemed sweeter by year 63.

Love is and always will be a choice. Love is not passive, but active. It doesn’t happen to you, it happens through you. In order to happen through you, you must choose to express it. And this can be really hard sometimes. There are days that you will absolutely fail to love to the best of your ability, but tomorrow is always another opportunity to choose kindness, patience, and humility. 

I’m excited to embark on another year of marriage with you, Curtis. Thanks for daily choosing to love me.