Marriage Month: An Introduction

In a couple weeks David and I will celebrate our seventh wedding
anniversary. I’ve been thinking a lot about all that time we’ve spent together and what it
has done for us as husband and wife. This past year has been an especially hard
one, but we’re both still here. We’re still a team. And, quite frankly,
our team is kicking butt. I think the world should know that.

 
I feel like I read all the time about how difficult marriage is, and how unhappy married people are, and how it’s a dying institution, and how divorce rates are through the roof, and all kinds of negative stuff like that.

I’m tired of it.

Truth: being married is awesome. Marrying David was absolutely the best decision of my life. Our wedding day was amazing and ridiculous: he hiked Camelback that morning, I sweat myself to near-dehydration in The White Death, and we totally ran out of wedding cake and had to send someone to get more from a nearby grocery store to feed the masses. My family still laughs about that.

But much as Pinterest might tell you otherwise, marriage is not about the wedding. It’s not about how hard that first year is supposed to be, or how unnecessary that piece of paper is in today’s society, or how terrifyingly likely you are to be divorced within three years.

Marriage is love and selflessness. It’s learning to care about someone else’s needs and wants before your own. It’s trying new things together and learning a new, shared vocabulary of memories. It’s staying up late to talk to each other in the dark–even though you know you should have gone to sleep hours ago–because you like each other and you miss each other and even after all this time you still have so much to say.

It’s putting together two people who are wildly different but who complement one
another so beautifully that together they are so much better than they could ever
have been on their own.

Marriage can be so good. And when it is, it is good for everyone.

I’m going to spend this entire month talking about marriage. The good stuff about marriage. Nothing but the happy and funny and uplifting and inspiring. Pinky promise.

I’m no expert, though, so I’ve gathered quite a bit of help. I’ll be sharing advice from my grandparents, who will be celebrating sixty years of marriage next summer. I’ve got some excellent guest posts lined up, written by some lovely women in different stages of wifehood, and I so admire their attitudes and unique perspectives. I may even get David to write a little something for us. No promises there, though. Let’s not get too crazy.

But there will be pictures and stories and a few of my own humble thoughts, and if you decide to come visit me, I’ll even make you snacks.

Put it on your calendar: September is Marriage Month. Let’s do this.

(All photos are mine except the first one, which is by Photography Hill. Marriage tip #1: don’t take yourselves or each other too seriously. I’ve done so much goofing around with this guy and I still love it.)

You may also enjoy:

On Marriage: An Interview with Deidre of Deidre Emme Marriage Month: An Interview with Sam of The Beesley Project Marriage Month: Ugly is Forever