“You’ve known each other since the second grade?!”
This is usually the response that I get when people ask when I met my husband. We met on the first day at my new school in a new state in the second grade. He sat at my table.
IN FACT, he was the first kid to make fun of me… On the first day… Within the first five minutes… of being in my new school… Love at first sight, right?
Long story short, I did something stupid, and he called me stupid. Little did he know he’d be paying for that with me pointing out every little stupid thing he does ever because, well, marriage.
It wasn’t like we were always together or best friends since then. He was sometimes in my class and we were friends in the sense that everyone in Elementary school is friends. But we didn’t really start to hang out until Junior High.
We DID “go out” in Junior High. Which meant we held hands and went to the mall together with a group. This lasted 10 months which in Junior High time is a lifetime!
Tenth grade is when real love happened. And you might be thinking “Yeah, whatever, you can’t fall in love in high school…” We did. And it lasted.
I don’t feel that love is an age thing. Love is making the decision to love someone, then choosing to commit and choosing to make it last. Sure, it often starts off with attraction and those butterfly feelings, but relying on that for “love” is probably the biggest mistake that we make as a society and why marriages don’t last. That feeling WILL go away. That is if it’s not continually nurtured. It’s not a matter of IF, but when. Those butterflies fly away, the red, blushing cheeks, and skipping hearts will eventually fade. What you’re left with is just normalcy.
After just a couple of years of young love, we had decided that we were in it for the long haul. We knew that we were going to get married. Many people would say, “Well, you don’t know that… You don’t know what’s gonna happen.” But I did know. I knew because I knew that I was the one who decided what would happen, and I had decided to love my husband for the rest of my life.
So often we act as if things that are in fact OUR decisions are completely out of our control. You hear “Well we just fell out of love…” Marriage is work, even good marriages that you think are just perfect. You think, “Wow, they have stayed married to each other because they still love each other. They found the right person!” But actually, it’s that they stayed married and CHOSE to love each other even in the times when they kinda hated each other. They CHOSE to stay committed even when things got boring. They worked to make it better when it wasn’t so good.
I sometimes feel that people (not my family, because they know the struggles that we have had before), my friends, tend to put us on this pedestal. They say “You guys are just so cute!” and “You are like the perfect couple, you just adore each other!” And they are right, in a sense. But we work to adore each other. It’s not that we picked the exact right person and lucked out. I probably could have had a great marriage with someone different, and he could’ve been happy with someone else as well. Honestly, on paper, our relationship shouldn’t really work-just looking at the details, it wouldn’t seem like we’re compatible. But it works for us.
There are some days that I get so frustrated with him. There have been fights where we don’t even like each other. But we will always say I love you. The weird thing is, saying it makes it true in a way. We will have just the worst fight. Then he will stop and say, “I love you. I wish we weren’t fighting.” And it changes. We might still be fighting, but we know that it’s not the end. We know that we are both committed. We know that we can rely on each other.
Even in those times, we don’t really like to be away from each other. We will sit in a room angry but won’t leave. It’s a weird sort of I’m so mad at you but you’re still the one that I need.
We CHOOSE that. There have been times that my love is fueled mainly by my not wanting to be in an unhappy marriage. I won’t leave him, I made a promise, I better get happy about it! It’s like that line in that Pat Benatar song:
“Don’t wanna leave you really,
I’ve invested too much time
to give you up that easy
to the doubts that complicate your mind.”
Only after being married a few years was I like, wow, yup. She’s got that one right. Before marriage, that line always seemed so cynical and unromantic. And many of you who still haven’t experienced think, “Wow, that is awful!” but many of you totally get what I’m saying.
It’s not fueled by that for long. It always goes back to happiness. I adore my husband. I love talking to him, doing nothing with him, doing everything with him! I love watching him love our kids.
I feel so sad when people ask how long I’ve been married and are impressed. To me, eight years is such a small part of my life. We still have 50 or more to go (assuming we live that long)! For many, like my parents who have been married for 37 years, eight years is child’s play. But for so many, it is a feat! The thought of lasting that long is becoming more and more unheard of. And this makes me sad because of how many people are missing out. The fact that I have someone who loves me so much that he will love me even when it’s difficult is such a wonderful gift. Someone who did not birth me or biologically tied to me in any way will never leave me out of HIS choice. That is such a great thing! And it is so worth the work.
Parenting can make marriage hard. Many of you, if you are reading this are parents. Even if you aren’t parents, I want to encourage you. Take time to say I love you! Even when you don’t feel like it. Make the choice every day to love your partner. Notice when they do something to help the family. Thank your partner for the work and sacrifices that they are making.
Love is a choice. Make the choice. If you are having a rough time, it doesn’t mean it has to be the end. Even the “perfect” marriages go through those rough times. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be married, it simply means, you are both human.
[…] How to Argue in a Strong Marriage Our Love Story […]
[…] think that my favorite chapter so far has been Day 11. If you haven’t read our love story in a previous post, you probably don’t know that Max and I have been friends since we were kids […]
Love this! you are so right about saying ‘I Love you’ ! We always make apoint of saying it.. even if its after an argument. It’s like we are saying.. I may not like you in this moment.. but I will always LOVE you. Great Love story! Thanks for sharing!
I totally agree! We’ll say I love you probably 100 times in a day lol. We were with other people and Max and I said it at the same time just randomly and they were like, uhhhh you guys are so weird. Of course then my husband had to try to make it a competition and said, “I definitely said it a tiny bit first so I obviously win” lol
[…] Our Love Story […]
[…] I had our eighth anniversary! If you are interested in our super adorable story, go check it out HERE! And while to many, that may seem like child’s play, I have been caught off guard by people […]
Love this post. Your relationship with your husband is similar to mine with my husband. Sometimes people think we are “perfect”, and in a lot of ways we did get a lucky hand, but we also work daily on ourselves individually and us as a couple. Keep it up!
Thank you! Yes, it takes daily work!
[…] my favorite memories are of when my husband and I were teenagers (yes, I said TEENAGERS, read our Love Story here), we would go to the museum all the time. It was the perfect date for a couple of teenagers […]
My fiancé and I met in 5th grade (4-H Vet Science Club) and we were friends from then on, he was and still is my best friend and after accidentally friend zoning each other all throughout high school we FINALLY realized that we both liked each other senior year and started dating! I left town for college, then he transferred somewhere even farther, and now we are apart due to his job but I will be joining him after our wedding next month! After 5 years together and 4.5 years of long distance we will finally be together full time ❤️
That’s so wonderful! Congratulations!!!!
[…] He takes it to a whole new level. As long as I’ve known him (which is a long time, see “Our Love Story“) he has always made things out of cardboard. Toys, costumes, shields, swords, boxes that are […]