Here are a few reflections on our first 5 years as a married couple. A lot of these pertain to our own relationship with two young children. We had Molly before we were married so we don't know any differently, but a lot of these have a slight undertone about children :)
1) Your relationship is yours, and yours alone.
I know all about the saying Comparison is the thief of joy and I absolutely try to put this into practice in my own life, but I definitely fail sometimes. I have met couples over my lifetime and thought, "wow, why isn't that me and Brian? They always seem so happy and we were just arguing on the way over here!" I've also spent plenty of time thinking that all happy couples go to bed at the same time every night (we often don't) and have a date night once a week (we should try to do this more) or do everything together (this just isn't us). When it comes down to it, we are happy doing what we're doing. We strive to be partners in parenting. We involve each other in all of our exciting, mundane, interesting, silly moments and big life decisions. Just because one thing makes someone else happy doesn't mean that it's what we need to be doing. I've realized this a lot over the past year or so and it has improved our lives considerably (Brian is very much a "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" kind of person).
2) Learning more about your partner's love language, personality, and life goals can be quite eye-opening.
I love learning about stuff like this because my background is in psychology and I enjoy self-help type books. Brian is an engineer and couldn't care less about this stuff, but he does answer my questionnaires and I share things with him. We recently came across a house listing (even though we're not planning to move anytime soon) that Brian told me was his DREAM HOME. Problem: It was not even CLOSE to being my dream home. This was hilarious because we are both going to have to make some compromises down the road, but it just taught me that there is something new for me to learn about my husband all the time. Even though we have very different personalities, learning a bit more about this stuff has helped us to understand each other a little bit better, and isn't that the point?
3) Even though Brian is a top priority in my life, he may not always be the most immediate priority.
If I ever have any news to share or need advice, Brian is the person I turn to first (my parents are a close second :P). He is absolutely the most important person in my life aside from myself (because if you don't look out for yourself, who's going to?!). However, on the many nights of feeding and rocking a new baby over the past 5ish years, there were other things that I needed to do. Likewise, there were times when I could have spent extra time with him after the kids went to bed but I needed alone time to recharge and relax. We spent ~40 minutes of quality time in the car everyday talking about anything under the sun, so sometimes I feel okay if we do our own thing in the evenings. However, he does need to be made a priority sometimes, obviously, and that's what this weekend is about :)
4) When things get too busy, it's important to take some time together.
We are going away this weekend for this first time in a LONG time and I can't wait. We need this time alone together to just relax and enjoy each other's company during the time of day when we are not exhausted (i.e. evenings). We are blessed to have both of our parents nearby who are happy to watch our children on a regular basis so we do date nights about once a month, but it's very easy to do date nights at home too and sometimes we just relax with a few board games and a glass of wine and that's enough.
5) Having close friendships with other couples is wonderful.
Growing up, my parents had quite a few wonderful couple friends, most of whom we knew quite well and whose children I am still close with. I can't speak for my parents, but I know that in my own life, it is AMAZING for us to have couple friends who we can turn to and lean on and learn from. I remember something the priest mentioned on our wedding day about all of the people who were present to support us in our marriage, and we have been abundantly blessed with fantastic role models and other couples who are a testament to the love that surrounds us.
What do you think? Do any of these ring true in your own marriage? I'm always interested to hear other's thoughts on these things because I definitely know I am NOT an expert at any of this!!!
Happy anniversary Brian! Can't wait to relax and celebrate this weekend.
i love this and 100% agree! it's so important to continue to foster your own dreams/desires/goals in order to be happy.
ReplyDeletehappy anniversary!!
Happy Anniversary!!!! Chris and I will be celebrating five years of marriage this year too. I agree with everything you said. Learning your partners love language is impoetant! As is taking time for yourself and as a couple. I wish chris and I had more couple friends. It's hard to make them as adults!
ReplyDeleteHahaha, I am the opposite of "if it isn't broke, don't fix it." I'm always trying to optimize everything, even our relationship, but Ryan's on board and will usually try out the things I want to try. He agrees that our relationship is much better for me having read so many books and some of the changes we've made. But I definitely agree that every relationship is different and there's no point in comparing (although that's exactly what I'm doing now - ha!). And I'll admit my friend's relationships often remind me to be grateful for mine because I almost always prefer the way we do things.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a ton of couple friends (most of my friends are in a relationship but we're not specifically friends with both of them). We are trying to find some that have children close in age to ours, which I think will be more important for the parenting support and having people to do things with without necessarily having to find a sitter.
As bad as it sounds, I don't think Ryan is ever going to be my "top priority" because right now that's the baby and when Orion grows up, I'm still going to put myself and the dogs first. I won't ever be a "stay married no matter what" person, though I do try to work through difficult times if possible. I think Ryan and I both try to compromise as much as possible but ultimately we'll put our own needs first if we ever get to an impasse (I can't currently imagine what this would be but say some extreme situation like jail or cheating).
Happy belated anniversary! Your wedding dress was gorgeous! Love all of your reflections in this post. I can definitely relate to #2, my husband is basically my opposite in a lot of ways, but somehow it works, and I always think it would be kind of obnoxious if we were too similar ;) haha.
ReplyDeleteHappy belated anniversary! :) I love that photo! This is such a fun reflection to do! I have to say that comparison can definitely be damaging! BUT I can also say, at the stage KC and I are at right now (super content, no big plans to move toward aside from getting a house...) it can be hard to know what we'll want next. Which has me looking at others' lives. We don't know if/when we want kids, etc. It feels like there are so many options that would all be good in different ways. hahah I can definitely say that for us, spending a lot of time together is key! A lot of people think we are nuts (that's ok!) but we work together, share a car, eat lunch together most days, and spend most evenings together too! On busy weeks, we try to find pockets of time that we can spend just the two of us, because we tend to get overbooked sometimes. We nearly always go to bed a the same time which works for us. I don't know! A big thing for us is that we also talk everything out before it becomes an issue. So we never really fight, and we rarely bicker. But I know that is unusual as well! :P XO - Alexandra
ReplyDeleteSimply Alexandra: My Favorite Things