Reflection of Our Marriage Part 1

I am doing this in two parts for a reason. Josh and I each decided we would write about how far our marriage has come in the last 8 years from our own points of view. Part 2 will be his. My Brother got engaged recently and it's made me think about our journey.

In some ways it's just beginning since 8 is a small number in regards to a lifetime. My parents have been married for 42 years his for 47. But we got married at 24 out of college so for people our age 8 years is great. But we've been together for 14 years and in a lot of ways our marriage reflects those of couples married for 12 years more then those married 8. I knew when I met him he'd be someone important to me I just didn't know what

We went on our first date on July 18, 1998. As I mentioned before, it was Armageddon in the theater and Burger King. On our second date, July 25, 1998 we had the "what are we?" talk and both eagerly admitted that we very much want to be boyfriend/girlfriend. A month later I asked "How do you feel about me?" and he asked for examples so I mentioned emotion words. I forget the exact order but it went something like this..."love, like, tolerate, care about those things". That's when we said "I love you." That's also at the time, one night in Dunkin Doughnuts, where we started mentioning what we'd like in a spouse clearly talking about each other but not saying it. It was both too soon in the relationship and we were 18 (well I was almost 18).

On August 10, 1999, right before I left for college in South Carolina, he proposed. We took our time telling our parents since my mom was of the mentality I needed to date more, he was my first boyfriend. The only reason they were okay with was because we weren't going to actually get married until after graduation. We talked every night on the phone and after two years I transferred to Cedar Crest in Allentown, PA so I was able to come home every weekend. The first big challenge we dealt with was my first miscarriage at 13 weeks when I was 21 in college.

After college came the wedding planning. We got our first apartment but both continued to live at home until after the wedding. Josh could have moved in but said it felt strange living there without me. That's when I started collecting the decorations for the apartment. The Jack-o-Lanterns on the coffee table now were the very first. The wedding was wonderful and beautiful. October 16, 2004.

I got a cold and woke up the day after our wedding sick so Josh had to jump right into "in sickness and in health". That night we had Burger King for dinner. To me, it was romantic to start our marriage the same way we started our relationship. Our Honeymoon was in Phoenix, Arizona at the Squaw Peak Hilton, a favorite from family vacations.

Josh does three chores:

1. Garbage and Recycling
2. Grocery Shopping (I do offer to take over all the time and get a stern "absolutely not!")
3. The dishes when he was home to eat the meal

We never fought over either of us feeling like the other doesn't do enough or that either of us hate what our chores are. That's because we let who does what naturally form based on each others strengths and preferences. I've always worked less then Josh so I have always expected to do more at home. It's one reason decorating and gardening are so important to me.

We did have a lot of conversations and made a lot of  compromises  as we started living together and figuring out marriage but this was a lot easier since we were engaged for 5 years 2 months and 6 days. During that long engagement we worked a lot out about our expectations from the marriage. Almost all of those early marriage little fixer uppers happened during the last three years of our engagement. In 2006 we decided we wanted a kid. I am really glad that we had a couple of years to be just us before starting to try but I'm glad we didn't wait any longer since it did take two years.

I am thrilled for Hugh and his fiancee. She is a wonderful woman, he chose well. I hope their marriage is as good as ours. Some thoughts: Ignore the old wives tales like "can't see the bride before the wedding it's bad luck". Seeing her only is bad luck if you're arguing while seeing her. Having your pictures taken first isn't going to effect anything about the marriage. She can expect to get a lot of advice about relationships but he'll get a lot of advice on how to keep her happy from people who don't know her well enough to actually know what makes her, as an individual, happy so he should ignore that. My advice is below. A year ago I did an Anniversary post on what builds a healthy marriage. I have posted it in the Huffington Post Wedding section in the comments several times and the Authors who read it (seven so far) have all commented on how accurate it is. So here you go backed by professionals:

1. BOTH PEOPLE HAVE TO GIVE AND TAKE!!! If something is important to the other person but not that important to you, let them have their way but they need to return the favor.

2. COMPROMISE!!! The best way to resolve differences is to compromise so that both people feel satisfied with the end results.

3. COMMUNICATE!!! No one is a mind reader. The other person can't know what you want or need if you aren't telling them clearly. Sometimes one person THINKS they are communicating their wants or needs but are trying to be subtle then they get mad when their partner doesn't understand. Unless the communication is clear, it probably won't be understood. Communication also needs to be complete, you can't make assumptions about something, ask about anything you might be thinking that you haven't talked about yet.

4. PERSONAL TIME!!! It's important to have your own interests and spend time apart. If you never miss each other, you'll get sick of each other. By having your own interests it keeps you as an individual and that means your more likely to be satisfied in your relationship. Too many people feel like there must be something wrong if you like spending time apart but the truth is, that individual time and individual interests are great to talk about with each other and a great way to still feel like you are your own person.

5. LET HIM/HER CHANGE!!! A common comment "you're not the (man/woman) I married" of COURSE not! People change through time. A common mistake when you get married is envisioning that your spouse will always be that person you love right now. They will change. Their thoughts and interests will change as will yours. Let your partner have those changes and let yourself have those changes. As you both change, you will need to use the other tools like communication and compromise to understand your partner's new interests and thoughts but by communicating and compromising you can remain happy with your partner because you'll still UNDERSTAND them.

6. MEET EACH OTHER'S NEEDS!!! When you make sure their needs get met, you are taking care of them and if your partner feels you are meeting their needs, they won't look elsewhere for those needs to get meet.

7. FLIRT: OFTEN!!! Especially if you have differing sex drives flirting is a way to let your partner know you still desire them. If they feel desired by you, they won't look for someone else who desires them. There are things other then sex that you can do to keep that spark alive (a favorite of mine is if Zach has hot food I'll look at Josh and say "Mommy blow" and blow on Zach's food).