Happy 20th Anniversary – a little late …

So, back on December 27th Tom & I passed a significant milestone in our life together – we’ve been officially hitched for 20 years!  Just saying that seems a little unreal.  20 years is almost half of the total time I’ve been alive.  Somehow I’ve gone from sharing my life with someone I’m “getting to know” to sharing my life with someone who knows me better than just about anyone else – including the parents who gave me life and raised me for 18 years (and then some).  It happened so gradually that I can’t even tell you when the balance tipped.

Marriage is a funny thing – at least my marriage in my experience.  It is something that I feel has been 20 years in the making.  We said “I do” 20 years ago and started living in the same house, but our marriage at that point was just some little thing – a tiny thread that bound us together and could so easily be snapped.  It has taken years of choosing to stay instead of leave, of choosing kindness instead of contempt, of choosing to forgive instead of get revenge, of  choosing to be patient instead of giving up.  When things are good, marriage is fun and easy.  Who doesn’t want to be with someone when you feel so good in their presence?  When things are hard, it takes strength of character and a firm grip on commitment to stick it out – to remember that things change and people change and “this too shall pass”.

Tom & I have had our ups and downs.  We’ve struggled to be less selfish and more connected.  We’ve learned to appreciate each other (which is a skill that we, at least, had to acquire).  We’ve had to weather outside challenges like unemployment and the challenges of raising children with significant emotional and mental health difficulties.  I’m not sure exactly what has made the difference for us – why we didn’t fly apart when statistics show that many couples do.  I hope it is because we hedged our bets – made the effort to be married in an LDS temple (which, in our religious beliefs, includes being sealed together not only for mortal life, but for life after death as well), took to heart the examples of our parents who weathered their own challenges but have stayed together, took seriously our belief that children deserve to be raised by two parents who love each other and are faithful to each other.

But I suspect that there are no easy safe guards for marriage.  Each day a marriage is strengthened when both people choose to be a part of it.  And conversely, it can be weakened when one of those people chooses not to be part of it.  And it takes both.  One person cannot make a marriage work.  No matter how much you love or give, you can’t force another to love back.  It’s a scary thing.  Marriage makes you so vulnerable.  But it is also an amazing thing, because when it is working, there is nothing better than having someone know you so intimately – good and bad.

At 10 years marriage was still pretty difficult at times, but at 20 years I’m starting to feel like it’s getting pretty darn great.  I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years hold!  But mostly I’m just so grateful that I decided to go to school that odd summer quarter, that Tom and I just happened to have one odd class that threw us together, that we took that amazing leap of faith into marriage when we hardly knew each other, that Tom has been the perfect person to teach me to laugh more at myself, to step back when I’m in danger of getting lost in the details, and who has loved me unconditionally.  We certainly don’t have the perfect relationship, but I’m pretty pleased by what we’ve built so far.  It’s one of the best things I’ve done with my life.

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