Favorite Quotes For Each Stage of My Marriage

Don't be in such a rush to figure everything out, embrace the unknown and let your life surprise you.

The Mr. and I chose to get married relatively young.

Twenty-one and twenty-two to be exact. The truth is that we started our relationship at four-teen years of age and almost a decade later, marriage couldn't have come any sooner. We decided to wait until we graduated from university before tying the knot. This meant that we would finally be able to move in together with our two kitties and start our own adventures as a newlywed couple. We were thrilled by all the unknowns that lay ahead of us. Western society advises young people to wait until much older for marriage. It has succeeded in making young people believe that you have to get through high school, wrap up your university degrees, do plenty of dating around and start off your career before you make the decision to marry. In my own life, I have found the best memories I have are from experiencing all my 'firsts' with my love and best friend. Having him as a support through my college years and learning how to 'adult' with him as newlyweds allowed me to make choices for the future and get ahead of most people my age. Take a chance and don't feel like you need to live out your entire life before you say 'I do'. Life is a lot more exiting and edifying when you live out life's special moments with your life partner.

A strong relationship requires choosing to love each other even in those moments when you struggle to like each other.

I have to be honest, my first year of marriage was not the easiest for me.

Even after dating for almost ten years, nothing really prepares you for living with a person of the opposite sex. lol. Did we have newlywed bliss? I would call it more of a newlywed reality check. Settling into our roles as husband and wife was a challenge for me and compromising on the little stuff was not something I had a lot of practice in. Who knew marriage meant compromising on anything from menial daily chores to large financial and health decisions?! I was not prepared for that and being a stubborn personality I found myself having to take a deep breath quite often and asking myself if the issue at hand was worth losing a bit of my partner over. In hindsight many of the conflicts we faced that year sound super silly to us now but each one of them made our relationship stronger and established healthy problem solving habits for our future.

I am his Queen, he is my King, together we build our empire

In our third and fourth years of our marriage, we tackled many career decisions.

At twenty-five I had the grand idea of quitting my day job to pursue a state contract business operation. I remember praying about this thought many times over before bringing it up to my husband. I was so afraid that he would tear my dreams down with an uniterested response or a straight 'no'. To my surprise he was inquisitive about the idea and curious about how we would make it happen. Soon after we were signing off on partnership papers and writing business plans. He put his money where his mouth is and supported me not only with words and affection but with a business partnership. I was filled with respect for him so that when it came time for me to support him in his career choice to move to San Francisco and attend App Academy, I gave it my 200%. I strongly believe that a good marriage is built on teamwork, mutual respect and a bit of admiration all mixed into a sweet cocktail of Love.

You are our biggest and most amazing adventure!

Becoming parents for the first time was absolutely thrilling and full of new life adventures.

Suddenly life was not so much about us anymore but more about this new tiny human who relied on us for all things. We discovered a sweet love for this newborn baby that seemed so new yet felt aeons old. Nothing could prepare us for the amount of responsibility and Joy that this baby brought into our married life. Parenting brought about new and more interesting issues to compromise on that I never even knew existed. All of the sudden date nights came with a curfew because we didn't want to miss putting the little one to bed and I definitely didn't want a case of mastitis! Vacations became a lot less relaxing but way more exciting because we got to form new memories with our little one. Nap time became our best friend and we enjoyed the quiet times in the house so much more because they were now few and far between. Life got the 'good' kind of complicated and having a husband to share it all with is priceless really.

Our Journey isn't perfect but it's ours and I'll stick with you all the way.

Today marks our seven year anniversary and I'll be the first to admit that marriage is not all peachy.

Life's fortune has sent challenges our way that most married couple's our age would have trouble surviving. When life sends a storm, I see my marriage through my minds lense and think "do I wan't to walk this storm alone or do I want to walk it with the only other person on the planet who has to walk the same storm and who will love me through it?" God made man and woman to help each other and strengthen each other through life's misfortunes. When we remember this in our marriage we can claim the following blessing "Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" Mark 10:9.

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