Twenty One Years of Bliss

Hubby and I celebrate twenty-one years of wedded bliss today and although in honesty it hasn’t been 100% bliss, it’s been more bliss than not. We’ve had our share of arguments and disagreements, but overall we’ve learned to work together and become a team. We married six months after we met and I’m sure there are folks that thought our marriage would never last, but through stubbornness, love, and perseverance, we’ve managed to make it work.

First and foremost, hubby is my best friend and the person I can turn to and talk to about just about anything. He’s also been my moving buddy through more than 10 moves. We moved from St. Louis to Okinawa, back to Chicago, down to Central Illinois and then back to Chicago. We acquired two kids along the way and have shared our lives with a couple of dogs.

So what lessons have I learned through twenty-one years of marriage?

1. Friendship is the most important thing in a marriage. Lust comes and goes, but love helps keep you together. My husband has always been there for me and he’s been my moving buddy through more than 10 moves. Even when I had no one else to help me pack up boxes and move, hubby was there for me and we managed to get ourselves moved.
2. Stick together through the rough stuff. Every marriage has ups and downs and our marriage has seem some rocky financial patches, but we managed to get through them by sticking together.
3. Make time for each other. It’s really hard to carve time out to just be spouses and not parents, but we get along better when we make time for each other.
4. Learn to like some of the things your spouse likes. From wanting to spend time with hubby, I’ve learned to like Star Trek and James Bond. He’s still trying to get me to like football, but somehow I don’t think I’ll ever become a football fan.
5. Welcome each other home with genuine happiness. Some of the sweetest homecomings have been the simplest. I will always remember the time when I came home two hours late after battling through a horrendous rain storm and my husband had a white candle burning and had been praying for my safe return.
6. Have fun together. Our first date was to the zoo and I remember the exact moment I fell in love with my husband. He’d put his arms around me by the aviary and I learned against him and realized this was someone who would always be there for me.
7. Share the work. We don’t always do such a great job with this one, but we try. We both work and contribute to the bills and we try to share the housework, but that doesn’t always work out perfectly.
8. Really listen. Sometimes your significant other just wants to share his/her thoughts and doesn’t necessarily want a solution.
9. Marraige doesn’t make you Siamese twins. When we first got married, I thought we had to do everything together, but I’ve since learned that we each have to be our own people too in order for us to be successful.
10. Stay connected. We try to reach out to each other at least once during the work day. Sometimes it’s a “love tap” text message, somedays it’s a phone call, and other days it’s an email.
11. Have out of your world experiences together. Vacations don’t have to be month long sabbaticals, but you need to take some time out of the ordinary together. Your mini sabbaticals can be trips to the local farmer’s market, overnights in local hotels, any other way you can escape from the ordinary for a few hours.
12. Be yourself. There’s too much game playing in the world, too much falseness, too much hiding. Being yourself means being honest with yourself and your significant other about who you really are.
13. Be your best. It might sound contradictory ot be yourself and be your best, but being your best doesn’t mean hiding who you really are, it means taking time to dress up and put your best foot forward for the person you love. All to often we take time to dress up and be special for people who don’t really matter, but we show up in jeans and torn underwear for the person we love.
14. Bring your manners. We say things to the people we love that we would never say to strangers. Just because you love someone, doesn’t mean you get to slack on manners.
15. Accept your love one just the way he/she is. We’re all human and we all make mistakes and part of loving someone is being able to accept their humanity. My husband is an expert at accepting me for who I am with all my faults (losing things, leaving the lid off the toothbrush, and more).
16. Don’t make your who life your kids. Our kids are an important part of our life together, but they are not our entire life together and sometimes we need to make time for just the two of us. The kids don’t always like it, but if you don’t make time for just the two of you througout your marraige, you’ll end up empty nesters with nothing in common.
17. Learn together. Learning together keeps things interested and ensures you have new things to learn about. Learning doesn’t have to be taking classes together, it can be sharing knowledge that you’ve learned with your partner. For instance, I’ve learned a lot about blogging from “My Everyday Bliss” and I’ve shared the lessons I’ve learned with my husband.
18. Money isn’t everything. Sometimes I’ve gotten so caught up in working and striving to make more money, that I’ve forgotten that I’ve neglected my husband and family in pursuit of more money. I’m learning, that I need to give up success at work to have time for my family and the people who really matter.
19. It’s the thought that counts. I struggle with this one because I like to give and receive the perfect presents and hubby doesn’t always deliver what I consider the perfect present. Over twenty-one years, I’ve learned to put aside my disappointment at not getting exactly what I wanted and embrace the thought that went into the gifts.
20. Family matters. My husband has taught me so much by how he treats my family and the love and respect he shows them. He is unfailingly polite to my family and gives up his time to spend time with my family.
21. Love one another. Love isn’t just the spark of lust that newlyweds share, it’s the enduring love that long term partners have for each other and it is a cumulation of all the things above.

Marraige is the hardest thing I’ve ever done becuase it’s meant I’ve had to get out of myself and spend time thinking of other people and being there for someone other than myself. After 21 years, however, it’s definately worth it.