Happy Anniversary To Us!

Today is our 23rd wedding anniversary (this is a co-written post :-)).  We chose to get married this time of year because it's our favorite season (Winter is coming).  The fact that it's also the most hectic, especially once children are in the picture, never entered our minds when we were walking down the aisle.  Over the years,  we've found that it's not easy to carve out time for ourselves to celebrate, between Thanksgiving festivities and getting ready for Christmas. We have learned though, that it is important to make that effort and make that time.

We've had so many wonderful and warm congratulations from friends and family remembering our wedding day, it is truly heartwarming and humbling.  We feel that it's a tribute to the fact and evidence that it really does take a community to support a marriage and a family. It's also striking the number of comments that we get saying how "easy" we make it look. We've got friends and family who talk about how they hope for a relationship like ours.  As flattering as this is, we really need to set the record straight - it's priceless and wonderful but it is absolutely, unequivocally, not easy.  

Anyone who tells you different - that their relationship is easy - is either lying, or in for a very rude awakening. Life and marriage are full of ups and downs.  If you're in it only for the good times, then don't expect your marriage to last.  That may sound harsh, but it's the plain truth.  Things won't always be good.  The goal is always for the good to outweigh the bad; that's what makes it worth hanging in there and doing whatever you need to do to support each other.  Learn how to communicate, address any issues as soon as possible and in the healthiest way possible. We've both had to learn how to talk about the things we didn't want to talk about. Our knee-jerk reaction to almost any problem is to ignore it and hope it will go away.  Trust us, it doesn't. (And it really doesn't help if your partner has the same inclination).

Getting over the hump in bad times and getting through them with your relationship intact takes a lot of work; a lot of forgiveness; a lot of understanding; a lot of compromise; a lot of prayer; and a lot of love. We're writing this together for a couple of reasons - it seemed right - an anniversary is a team effort. We're also writing this together because we've come through some really, incredibly hard times and are now coming out the other side. We want to say to anyone out there having trouble in their relationship or even in finding love, not to think that if it isn't easy, it isn't good or it isn't true love.  You don't know what goes on behind closed doors.  You only see the face that people choose to show the world. Relationships that seem great could be really troubled in private; or ones that seem troubled, could actually be really healthy because the individuals have learned how to express themselves and accept each other.  You just don't know.

We are  firm believers that anything can be worked through if both partners want to. Our marriage is living proof of it. It's not always been easy but, it's always been worth it. We've been through a lot, but we are very happy and very much still in love. That's the reason that it is so important to make time to celebrate it.  It's an accomplishment that we are both proud of and that deserves recognizing, no matter how hectic the time of year.

<3 Mark and Greta