12 Lessons I've Learned in 12 Years of Marriage

Nicholas and I celebrated twelve years of marriage yesterday. Every year we write in a vow album. The day of our wedding we wrote our vows in a journal and then every year we write a letter to one another on our anniversary. This year for the first time I went back and read all of Nicholas's letters to me over the past 12 years and started thinking about how far we've come and how much we've learned. 

1. My marriage is my life’s work.

One of my favorite song lyrics comes from Power of Two by the Indigo Girls. "And if we ever leave a legacy It's that we loved each other well” I hope Nicholas and I leave that legacy, not only for our kids but for ourselves. Continuing to build a strong relationship with this man with whom I’ve chosen to share my life is incredibly important to me and I take it very seriously.

2. That being said… my husband cannot meet every emotional need I have.

I owe it to him to take care of myself, to pursue my own interests, and deal with my own issues.

3. Don’t take the beauty of marriage for granted.

4. Spend time together.

When Nicholas and I were still dating, he moved to North Caroline for law school while I stayed in Kentucky and finished college. We vowed then to never go longer than three weeks without seeing each other. I have no doubt that is what made our long distance relationship successful. We still spend quality time together, especially now that caring for three young kids can sometimes feel like we’re ships passing in the night. The importance of time together - face to face - cannot be underestimated.

5. Spend time together ALONE.

I know the traditional advice is to go on a date once a week but SERIOUSLY that is both unrealistic with three kids and expensive. A local church hosts Parents’ Night Out once a month where we can drop all three kiddos off for 5 hours and we always sign up for that. We usually end up going out more than that but having the once-a-month night we’ve committed to doing helps keep one-on-one time on our calendar. 

6. Fight fair.

As newlyweds, Nicholas and I fought… A LOT. We yelled and called names and took cheap shots. It took us a long time to learn how to fight in a way that is fair and constructive. We don’t agree on everything but when we disagree, we try our best not to take it personally or treat each other with contempt.

7. My emotions are relevant but they are not reality.

8. Have sex.

No, seriously. Like my friend Emily says, if you’re not having sex, what’s to distinguish the relationship from any other close friendship or relationship.

9. Don’t try to change the other person.

I won’t lie and say I’ve perfected this one. There are things about Nicholas I would change if I could and, as an eternal optimist, I keep trying. However, the core of who he is I would never change. I fell in love with the way his brain works and it’s still my favorite thing about him 12 years later. 

10. Keep an eye on one another.

This is different than trying to change the person. It’s more about understanding what makes them tick and what makes them stressed. Nicholas and I are both very good at sensing stress in the other person and not taking any snippiness personally. Plus, we usually have a pretty good idea about what the other person might need to relieve that stress and sending them on their way for some self-care. 

11. Know your partner’s world.

Early in our marriage, I read Dr. John Gottman’s fabulous book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert . One of the principles that stuck with me was being deeply familiar with your partner’s world. I make it a point to understand Nicholas’s work, what projects might be stressing him out or what’s coming up. The same goes for his interests and hobbies. I’ll never love My Brother, My Brother, and Me as much as him but I do KNOW he loves it.

12. Be vulnerable.

After 12 years of marriage, there is no one I trust more than Nicholas. I tell him my deepest fears and insecurities. I tell him what I don’t tell anyone else. Knowing he sees me at my weakest and loves me anyway – his acceptance in the face of my vulnerability – goes to the very heart of our marriage.

What about you? What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned about marriage?

Choosing to Love

Recently, I was listening to This American Life. For those of you who don’t listen to This American Life (no judgment but what is WRONG with you!??), every week they choose a theme and put together different stories on that theme. This episode’s theme was break ups. The first story revolved around the particular perfection that are breakup songs. It involved Phil Collins and was really everything that is wonderful about the type of storytelling on This American Life.

Specifically, I learned the story behind one of my favorite songs – breakup or otherwise – of all time Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me.

Written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, the idea from the song came after Reid read a newspaper story about a man who had shot up his ex-girlfriend’s car. At his sentencing, the judge asked the man if he had learned anything to which the man responded, "I learned, Your Honor, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't.”

Hearing that story with Bonnie Raitt’s mournful voice in the background, I burst into tears.

Now, I haven’t experienced a breakup in almost 15 years. Don’t get me wrong. It was a bad breakup. It involved betrayal on a scale my 19-year-old heart could barely comprehend. I still remember the pain of wanting someone to love you when THEY JUST DON’T.

However, that was not why I was crying.

I was crying because I wake up every morning to a man who does chose to love me. This is a man who is legally obligated to me and my children but whose heart holds no obligation at all. I forget that sometimes. I take it for granted.

As a mother, the love I feel for my children can outshine everything else. It’s so raw and instinctual and powerful, and yet, in a way, a little less special. I don’t choose to love my children. I just do. I have no control over it.

But I choose to love this man and he chooses to love me and when the reality of that hits me sometimes, it feels like the biggest damn miracle I’ve ever witnessed.

When Nicholas and I lost our baby, I expected my girlfriends to provide the most solace. Not because I expected less from Nicholas but because I just thought as mothers they might understand my pain in a way he couldn’t. And they did provide a huge amount of emotional support but over and over again it was Nicholas that kept me moving forward.

It feels unfair. It just so happens that the same 19-year-old heart that had been shattered by betrayal lucked into Nicholas’s possession only a few months later. I knew at that point what love wasn’t but really had no idea what love or marriage or companionship really WAS. I have friends that are still looking. I have friends that trust their hearts to people who chose someone else.

But here I am with a man who does choose to love me.

I know that could change. Life is hard and marriage is harder but for now I’m going to be grateful for my little miracle.

I can’t make him love me, he just does.

Why I went back to a cheater

My first love cheated on me. Repeatedly.

And I went back to him. Repeatedly.

He was my first real boyfriend and had followed me from high school to college. (Mind you, he did not attend the college - just moved to the same town.) I was head over heels in love with him, as only a teenager can be. I truly believed I was going to marry him. Then, I found a love note in his apartment from a sorority sister — not just any sorority sister but a close friend who had taken me under her wing and showered me with affection.

It is a betrayal that still stings eleven years later.

I believed at the time I could end their relationship. I made him call her in front of me and tell her it was over. I checked his email and followed up on every story he told me. He continued to see her and continued to lie. I knew he was lying but I remember vividly calling my mother from his apartment and crying that I just could not make myself leave.

We weren't married and didn't have children. We'd only been together for two years. I can't even begin to imagine the pain of adultery inside marriage. All I remember is the self-doubt and crippling confusion.

If everything I believed about this person I loved and trusted is wrong, how can I ever trust myself about anything—including whether I should stay or whether I should leave?

Eventually, a very wise friend (who I ended up marrying) advised me that I was trying to reason with idiots and idiots don't understand reason. This was not about me. Their betrayal had everything to do with them and their issues and very little to do with me. And I finally realized nothing I could do would end their relationship (they eventually married... and divorced) or save mine.

It was one of the hardest lessons of my life and one I still carry with me. I married a man I truly don't believe would ever cheat on me. HOWEVER, I am not a fool. My husband loves me but he is not perfect, nor is he above basic human psychology. I've seen Love Actually, even the best husbands aren't impervious to a flirty, determined young woman. However, I would not be as kind as Emma Thompson. I wouldn't say I'm zero tolerance but I would add I take the upkeep of my marriage very seriously and the presence of any new women in my husband's life even more seriously. (In other words, stay away from my husband or I will cut you.)

None of us really know a marriage - except our own. And even then, when a lie makes everything you once believed was real suddenly seem fake, you can't really count on anything ... including the belief that Tammy Wynette was full of shit all these years.

This post was originally published on Salt & Nectar.