By We often compare our relationships to other peoples’ picture perfect photos, so I wanted to share a very beautiful, yet painful, story about my marriage in the hopes that we try just a little harder.
Bub and I have been together for the last 12 years and we got married five years after we started dating. Never in a million years would I have thought that just a year into our marriage we would fall apart. Yet we did.
Our lowest of lows in our marriage became the sole reason we’ve made it so far. We worked on our marriage because we wanted to be together more than apart.
That fall was one to the most painful memories in our relationship. Like many couples, we lacked communication. We didn’t take the time to understand our new life together, including step-parenting, financial planning, and finishing off school. We got lost in playing the game of life.
Our lowest of lows in our marriage became the sole reason we’ve made it so far. We worked on our marriage because we wanted to be together more than apart. We went through marriage counseling for over a year because we wanted learn to become better partners. He learnt to communicate even on the days he didn’t want to; that was hard!
We started to make a list of marriage goals.
We acknowledged our mistakes and downfalls.
We tried so hard, we really did. And through all of that, we blossomed and we grew…together.
Today after 7.5 years of being married, we continue to try hard at our marriage, the kind where you’ve put in REAL effort. We still do weekly check-ins, we put away our phones during dinner, and we pray together. We have a marriage journal where we write to each other and we have a list of marriage goals that gets updated every few months.
Through this journey, I’ve come to realize that not all storms come to destroy your life. Some come to clear your path.
We don’t take each other for granted because we’ve experience the loss of each other. We put in the effort even on the days that feel hard. After all, those are the days that matter the most.
Through this journey, I’ve come to realize that not all storms come to destroy your life. Some come to clear your path. In our story, the storm has turned into growth and every so often, when it rains, we wait for the clouds to clear so we can watch the rainbow together.
I hope this story inspires you to be happy in your own little worlds, to love him or her enough to try harder, and to not give up on what could be a beautiful story.
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