Our 3rd Anniversary

This week I am celebrating three wonderful years of marriage to the love of my life. Every minute of our marriage has not been perfect, but it's definitely been worth it. I can honestly say when it comes to husbands I found a great catch. It's around this time of year I tend to be particularly reflective about our relationship. I ponder about where we are? Where we're going? And what I've learned so far? In honor of Emily's "What I Learned this Month" SERIES  and our anniversary, I've decided to share with you a few nuggets of marital wisdom:

1) Don't sweat the small stuff. There are a million and one things my husband does that could drive me up a wall. For instance, he never puts the toilet seat down, forgets to put in a new bag when he changes the garbage, and regularly leaves his toothpaste in the sink. When it comes to these habits I can frustrate myself and have a total meltdown, or I can accept them as is and pick up the slack. I choose to do the latter and find it creates more peace for the both of us. I try to keep things in perspective by asking myself, "Will this matter in five years?" If the answer is no, I move on.

2) Be grateful for what you have. It is inevitable that there will be times when my spouse successfully ticks me off.  Whenever I feel particularly upset with my husband, I do an appreciation exercise. After heading to bed when the hubs is asleep, I lay awake for a few minutes next to him and observe him breathing. I remind myself that one day he will not be breathing, and how if I'm alive when that time comes how sad I will be. I then pause and feel thankful for the ability to appreciate my husbands breath, and work on moving on from whatever annoyances occurred that day.

3) Treat your marriage like a job. There was a time when I was newly married that I thought marriage was not work. I believed I had found the perfect person, and somehow our relationship would magically strengthen and maintain itself. Boy was I wrong! It wasn't until I started to see marriage as a job, that I began to work at it successfully. Like any job I had a job description: bring happiness to my partner. I also had performance reviews, which entailed checking in to see how I was doing at my "job". This change in perspective worked wonders for the both of us, and I am happy to report we are both now top performers at work :-)

What about you? What marital wisdom can you share?

"I pray everyday more than anything, friends we'll stay as we begin to lay this foundation for a family. Love ain't simple, how can it be? Anything worth having you work at annually." ~Common