My Anniversary: Why I’m the lucky one

Without trying to age myself, let’s just say that I’ve been married longer than a decade. While that is not some major accomplishment, it is something I am very proud of. If for the only reason I can honestly tell myself,

“I would do it again!”

We both come from divorced homes, her’s much more difficult than mine. But our childhood shared some very common sentiments. Long before we walked the aisle, we purposefully decided to have a relationship that was created on a foundational idea. A cornerstone of what we were to become.

We committed ourselves to learn from our parent’s mistake and to work at it until it hurt.

A pastor or a counselor might tell you before you get married that it will be hard. That’s true, but I think the better way to phrase it would be to say:

It will require you to work, and I mean real adult work.

Work is effort, hard is an emotional response. Work is time and energy and patience. Hard is frustration without feeling accomplishment. Work is what can define you and fill your soul for a lifetime.

That to me is marriage. The sense of reward has been worth every single step along this walk.

As I get older I seem to remind myself constantly that time is an asset. It is a commodity that is traded in a sense. It is a constant analysis of:

“why is one thing more valuable of my time than another?”

Let me explain in a crude metaphor. If marriage was a living breathing entity, then time is food and water to the very life of that entity.

I’m by no means a marriage counselor or some sage of wisdom. But I do know that when we have had fights or a rough patch in our marriage, spending too much time on one another has seldom if ever been the problem. If anything it is just the opposite. Spending too little time on the things that matter.

Time is not something you can wrap in a package and give to your wife as a gift. I’m so cheap if there was a way I would have tried by now. But it can arguably be the most special gift you can give her.