10 Things I’ve learned during Marriage:

I have been married for 5 years now and while I would love to say it was just a perfect romantic comedy filled with laughs, chocolates, and love. We have had our ups and downs.

My parents did not have a good marriage and got divorced. I was so determined when Bryton and I got married that we would never get a divorce. That we would fight and push through everything we faced. And while so far we have done that it has in no means been easy.

Our marriage is happy and healthy now, and we almost never fight. Now that does not mean we do not disagree or argue, but we do not fight. We have little bickering sessions and discussions until we come to an understanding or figure out the problem.

Thankfully Bryton also is intent on fighting for us, it can be almost impossible if only one person fights for your love. I wanted to put down 10 things that I learned through our years of marriage, we’ve had 3 kids, moved 5 times and experienced a deployment to a war zone.

Communication is Key:

You will hear this one all the time, but the truth is that its real. Communicating with your spouse effectively will completely change your marriage.

Something I learned is that Bryton and I communicate very differently. Learning how to communicate with each other took years. I mean it.. YEARS. We’re five years in and I think we are finally in a groove and communicate very well.

Men think different than woman, that is a fact. So expecting them to communicate like we do is absurd. I found that I needed to communicate things that I thought were just common sense or polite to Bryton. For example, if I am in the middle of a task and the baby is screaming near me. I would become very frustrated that he was not hopping in to grab the baby and help me. But when I brought it up to Bryton, he said he does not jump in because I did not ask.

I was annoyed, I didn’t want to have to ask for him to help when it was obvious I needed help. Though he told me it is not obvious I needed help. He wasn’t sure if the kids were crying because I told them no, if I wasn’t them letting do something they wanted and they were mad at me, or if I was going to be done in 30 seconds and would attend to them, or something like that.

It made sense to me when he said that. How can he know if I am overwhelmed and need help unless I ask. With our second daughter I dropped that expectation completely. If I need help I ask for it.

We were able to fix that issue by sitting down and talking with each other though. We communicated our feelings and our side with out fear of judgement. I saw the situation from his side and he saw it from mine.

Truly we would not have been able to do that in the beginning of the relationship. No couple will communicate the exact same way, so just keep trying. Observe your spouse and learn how they communicate so that you can talk and solve problems the best way possible.

Respect is Earned:

It sounds so nice that since hey I am your wife I immediately get tons of respect and while yes your spouse should respect you, it is not granted in an endless supply. The thing is even in a marriage respect can be lost.

Respect is something that I believe is earned time and time again. Bryton and I show up for each other every day and that keeps our respect for each other intact. I do not expect him to give and give with nothing in return.

In a marriage respect is crucial, and it is earned and gained through out the entirety of it. Do not forget to respect your husband if you want to be respected back. If you feel disrespected bring it up and remind your spouse to do the same.

Do not be quick to anger if you feel your spouse shouldn’t be feeling disrepected or if you did something that you meant no disrespect but it hurt them anyway. We are all individuals and should feel safe enough to bring up these concerns.

Forgiveness is Important:

Boy oh boy it is so easy for me to hold a grudge, but that helps literally no one in our marriage (or life in general). I will admit for the first 2 ish years of our marriage I held everything I didn’t like that Bryton did over his head.

How unhealthy right? It did nothing for me or our marriage. Once I let that go I grew as a person and by doing that our marriage flourished. Your spouse is human and so are you. Mistakes happen, feelings get hurt.

It is okay! It’s okay to disagree and fight. It is not healthy to hold grudges forever or let fights put a wedge between you and your husband. Forgiveness is not something that came naturally to me. Though I am so happy it is something I worked on and something Bryton stayed with me through.

It is much easier in my mind to put the blame on them instead of forgiving and moving forward, but in the long run for EVERYTHING forgiveness is better.

Remember you come from different backgrounds:

This was advice given to me as a teenager, remember your significant other grew up different than you. It has helped us through so much. There is bits of Bryton’s childhood I can not wrap my head around and vice versa.

We did not grow up the same and that has shaped us into who we are. It is good to be different, but we need to remember that we have had different experiences and that will shape how think and are.

I love that Bryton and I have different backgrounds, it helps us see the world through different eyes and gives us a broader idea of the world. That does not mean that it is not hard to nagivate sometimes.

It has affected us a lot when trying to manage parenting, as we were not parented in the same way, but it opens to doors for us to discuss how we want to raise the girls and pick and choose what we liked and disliked that our parents did.

Keep God in the center:

Truly keeping God in the center of you life will change everything and that is the same for your marriage. We pray together everyday and multiple times a day when we are faced with a big decision.

Holy cow that has been a huge blessing, keeping the Lord and gospel intertwined in your marriage will only make it stronger. There is literally no downside to it. This is something we did not do in the beginning stages of our relationship.

When I look back on the years where started praying together and attending church together everything fell into place so much smoother. We got along better, we communicated easier, forgiveness came easier, and literally everything else.

Keeping God near your heart will only benefit you and your family and I can not recommend this enough. I am sure this is why Bryton and I have such a happy and healthy marriage.

Value their time:

I often feel as if marriage advice sounds like common sense, but it didn’t come easy to me.. I am unsure if it’s because my parents were a bad example at a healthy marriage or what. But for a good while I did not value Bryton’s time as much as my own.

Especially after having kids and started working from home. I thought I did more than him as a work from home mom then he did as a dad who worked outside the home. But the truth is it was different roles but just as important.

His time mattered even though we did not do the same thing all day. I wanted him to come home and just take over for me. I wanted him to do the rest of what I did not get donet ath day or what I thought about all day and wanted him to do.

But when he got home from his 12 hr shifts he was tired and wanted to relax or spend time with the kids. While I just had another to do list for him.

Really not fair!! I had to reevaluate why I felt like that and remember that time is currency and he gives up a lot of his time to provide for us. He time is valuable and his wants and desires are too.

Now I value his time much more and it has helped safe us from a lot of fights!

Remember their love langauge:

I do have a whole post on keeping the love languages in your marriage. I will link it here.

Love languages make SO much sense to me and they have been a huge blessing in my life in general and in my marriage.

Bryton and I do not have the same love langauge at all, and show we do not show love the same way. I was thinking I was showering Bryton in love, but it was not coming across like that.

I also did not think Bryton loved me as much as I loved him since in my mind he was not demonstrating love the way I was wanting or expecting it.

Once we took a step back and realized that we just do not feel or show love in the same way we were able to change. When I looked at it I could see that Bryton was showing his love everyday to me, I just didn’t realize it.

Now that we sat down and talked about love languages and how the others feel and show love it has been so helpful. We both do something each day to show the other that we are thinking of them and that they are important.

Date them:

Unfortunetely once we get married dating your spouse seems to take a back burner. Especially when you have kiddos.

It is so important that even when you have been with someone for a long time and have a life and family with them to still date them and keep that flame alive. Finding time to continue to date can be hard.

But you will never regret devoting time to your marriage and spouse. Bryton and I try to have 1-2 dates a month. We used to have one each week but now with 3 kids and jobs that is much harder.

Though we both make an effort to keep dating each other. He still makes sure I always have a bouquet of flowers which he started when we just started dating.

It is the little things that you do that will surprise you will make a huge impact.

Ups and downs are normal:

Sometimes I hear my friends say that they are thinking of throwing in the towel, because they’ve a lot of fights recently. But that is not the answer. The truth is you will fight, and have good time and bad.

Making sure that the bad times do not over shadow the fact that you do have good times. While yes its not good to fight 24/7 for months and months. It is normal to have rough patches.

But what is crucial is that you face those patches head on and try. Marriage is NOT easy and shouldn’t be. You are building a life and a future. That is not simple. We want things to simple and easy all the time.

Instant gratification is so prominent in our society these days and the truth is that marriage is not like that. Remember that while you’re having a bad time or a rough patch, it is not a bad marriage, nor time to quit.

Keep in mind why you fell in love:

Something I started doing in year 4 of our marriage is every time we fought I mentally made a list of 15 things I loved about Bryton and why I fell in love with him. I found that this just washed away so much of my anger for him.

My anger or annoyance with his was replaced with joy and fond memories. You fell in love with your husband for a reason. Thinking of those reasons can help you stay in love.

I get it, men can be annoying.. and marriage has not come easy to me. But loving Bryton always has. Reminding myself of why I love him has been a huge blessing.

I am glad that God put him in my life and has kept him there. The reasons I love him grow every day, which make this task so much easier. My list of why I love him just grows and grows.

Conclusion:

Marriage is HARD! Living with someone is hard, but it is so worth it. There is a reason that God wants us to get married. Life is so much fuller with someone to share it with. While is is so common to give up when things get hard, I think that is so silly.

Life is a test, it is not meant to be easy but worth it. Marriage is not easy but so rewarding and fulfilling.

You won’t regret fighting for your marriage and your husband. I am so glad God reminded me to push when things get hard. Fight for the things you love.

You got this!