Thursday, July 31, 2014

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

16 comments:

  1. I love this post - is that your photo above? It beautiful.
    Yes to all of the above but i beat the toilet seat thing out of him. IN fact now he's much neater than me and I've become a big slob. Long agree we realised we had to get cleaners three times a week to keep the peace and it really is a luxury. The old hubstar is always on my side, always telling me to go for it, charges my phone, doesn't worry if I buy yet another pair of jeans that may be the answer and is patient with the kids.

    When his brother in law comes to stay I remember all those annoying bachelor boy things he did...so its a good visit and at the end I appreciate him more.

    You've got the right attitude, you will have fun and lasting happiness

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    1. A husband who puts the seat down.....you are one lucky lady :-)

      It's so sweet that your husband charges your phone. My husband started charging my phone when we were dating. It was one of the things that made me think "I should marry this guy."

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  2. Happy Anniversary! Your wedding photo is gorgeous. Wishing you many more happy years together!

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  3. Great advice! I'm still single, but the failing marriages around me are a pretty good indicator that it takes more than being "in love" to stay HAPPILY married! :)

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    1. Thanks Victoria. You are correct the divorce rate is a good indicator it takes more than love.

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  4. Lovely post. And a belated happy anniversary to you and your husband!

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  5. Lovely post. And a belated happy anniversary to you and your husband!

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  6. A very wise post from someone relatively new to marriage. I hope that you have many many happy years of marriage to come! xx

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  7. Lovely photos. I believe that gratitude is the key to happiness in most areas of my life - and a sense of humor. "It is inevitable that there will be times when my spouse successfully ticks me off" ... indeed, and reading this made me laugh!

    P.s. I subscribed to your blog a while back, but have not received email notifications of posts. I just wanted to let you know in case it was an issue with the feed. I re-subscribed and will check in to make sure I'm getting updates.

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  8. Thanks Paula. I agree gratitude is so important, and leads to much happiness. Thanks for the heads up about the issue with the feed. I'll try and get that resolved.

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  9. Wow, you are a very wise woman!
    It took me a lot longer than 3 years of marriage to gain these insights!

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    1. Thanks. I try to value wisdom......as they say......it is better than silver and gold.

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  10. Beautiful family…saw your gorgeous baby girl on another post…congratulations!

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