10 years of wededness

Dec 28, 2001, I married DH. So we are celebrating 10 years of marriage. I think we have both worked our asses off when it comes to staying married. We both look at marriage as a job. Like any job, you have days that are wonderful and days that are off. Days were you can't believe you have the privilege of being with this person for the rest of your life and days were you can't believe you are giving this person the privilege of being with you for the rest of your life.

Marriage is marriage. We both have said that divorce is off the table. We will make it work or die trying. I find this mentally has worked very well for us. When times have been hard I don't look for the out; I don't toss out divorce to get my way. I know the bad times are not forever. If we work at it the good times will come back around.

I think the best advice on marriage I ever got was to "move away from home and learn to cling to each other."  I've heard it from couples who's marriages/relationships didn't make it. "We just did learn to depend on one another. We always turned to other people first.". So DH and I moved to Virginia in July of 2003. It was the best decision we ever made! I had to trust that DH had my back because I had no one else. We became a family. I know that if we hadn't have made that move we would have been divorced a long time ago. So even though we are back in Texas and back with family, we know that our first family is now each other.  Home is where we are and family is us.

Senior Prom '97

So today I celebrate 10 years of marriage.   They have been everything DH promised they would be: good/bad, sickness/health, rich(relatively speaking)/poor, funny/sad and so much more than I could have or would have thought.  The gift of our Audrey 2 years ago and the addition of Snoopy and Jasmin 3 years before that just added to the love in our family.   I think we both would like to expand the family with a few more children but we're learning to let God be in control and just enjoy the ride.

So to DH:  I love you.  I thank you for everything.  We've gone from 16-year-olds with nothing but dreams to 33-year-olds with a real family of our own.  I know we don't always see eye to eye but as long as you're willing to work at it I'm willing too.  I promise you I'm more stubborn and will always win at the "willing to work at it" game.  We celebrate 10 years of marriage but I hope that when we are looking back from our 50th that we'll see just how stupid and childish our views of ourselves were and how we have finally grown-up.  I look forward to many more years of dancing and singing and in general embarrassing of Audrey.  I pray that God blesses us with more children.  I can't wait to see the things that God has in store for us.  Love you always, Martha