Cheers to 3 years of togetherness: I trust our next chapter because I know the Author

Today, my husband and I celebrate our third wedding anniversary. THREE YEARS. I know, I can barely believe it myself. When we got married, I thought we’d spend years 1 and 2 and 3 on a luxurious island vacation, or stretch out on the beach of a high-end resort. In reality, we are stuck at home and maybe just trying to bunk in the middle of the lockdown to some local café or just stay home, pray, and wait to cook a splendid dinner.

The way we choose to celebrate our anniversary isn’t the only thing that may turn out differently than I’d expected, but my husband and I are, inarguably, both very different people than we were on our wedding day. Our basic way of life, our career paths, our political views, our idea of personal growth, our general life plans, even our spiritual growth journey that we expected to work out together, all have shifted throughout the last three years — but we’re still together, and we’re still happy and we’re still in love (I think).

Our partnership is unglamorous. We regularly get caught up in the day-to-day, don’t always kiss hello or goodbye, and more often than not date night consists of the entire big fat family dinners, streaming Netflix shows on our separate phones, Pizza parties mostly as our car date. If you listen to what Hollywood says about true love, you might think we let our passion die and we’re well on our way to marital turmoil. Before I got married, I might have thought that too.

But half a decade knowing him, I believe I now know better. Here’s what I know:

1. Find just one reason to love and stay together:

Marriage will exist in stages like the honeymoon stage, the pre-baby stage, the homeowner stage, some tortuously long and some impossibly short. You’re not required to follow any specific timeline, but be present enough to love where you’re at in each stage, regardless of your plans. If you can’t take the time to be happy together in your one-bedroom apartment, you probably won’t find happiness inside a four-bedroom house. Years in marriage will fly by, so worry a little less about your next big step and make sure you find a reason each day to love your spouse, love being married, love being alive. 

2. Marriage is hard, but FIX it! 

I think a lot of couples hear that age-old phrase and interpret it to mean “marriage is hard…for other people.” You’re in for a rude awakening, I promise. Your downs are always going to seem longer than your ups, even if they aren’t. At some point, marriage will feel like an anchor tying you down to keep you from reaching your full potential, even if that’s not the case. And when that starts to happen, a little voice in the back of your mind will start chanting: Leave it and run away! More often than not, those voices go away. But if they don’t—open communication with your spouse is just about the only thing that’s going to fix it. I think there’s a societal shame in admitting that it happens, which then prevents couples from openly talking about it. Keeping quiet about marital problems is a recipe for disaster; your silence will calcify into resentment. Chances are, if you clearly communicate to your partner that their behavior hurts you and makes you want to leave, they will want to do whatever they can to fix what’s broken. It’s when one of you stops trying that you might have something to worry about. So FIX IT!

 3. Have hobbies outside of one another.

It’s so easy to let yourself only exist as a couple, to disappear inside the romance until you’re unable to see yourself outside of the context of your marriage. Maintaining your sense of self is crucial to any successful partnership; you aren’t two halves that complete each other, but two wholes making the decision to navigate the world together. We haven’t aced it though but we do sit and figure out now and then. I have a bunch of hobbies that have nothing to do with him or his interests but he still appreciates me having and living by it. He has his own too. And to be honest, if you don’t have one that is still okay. You can just chill and watch. 

4. Maybe share a hobby as well.

I think after several years of marriage, it’s easy to fall into a routine where all you talk about with your spouse is logistics: travels, expenses, the kids, whose turn it is to do what, and so on. This happened to my husband and me around year one. It felt awkward to sit down and address the problem, but we figured out quickly there were two things we really like to do together: exploring food and long drives. Those things are ours now, and it always feels a little special when we sneak out of the house and try new plates of unravished food and review and midnight drives on an endless free road.

 5. Make support your number one priority.

My husband is the most supportive person I know. Whenever I feel like I’m facing some insurmountable task, whether that’s switching careers or going to therapy, he never questions my abilities or makes me feel incapable. No matter how outrageous my goal, his first reaction is always “OK, let’s do it. How do we get there?” In this respect, I am in awe of him.

As I mentioned earlier, you’re going to have ups and downs. There will be times when everything clicks and when you feel like you’re living with a stranger. Times when the sex is oh-my-god-everything-you’ve-ever-wanted good, and times when it’s just OK because you know what, you’re both tired and you have an early morning conference call and maybe you had a big fat dinner earlier. When things are beginning to seem less-than-perfect, that feeling of support can supersede trivial feelings of doubt. Romance and passion are timely to have, it may or may not happen, but to me, true love is feeling safe and wanted and understood—and making sure your spouse feels the same.

I’m not a marriage expert. I’m not a relationship therapist. I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to be there no matter how hard, how bad. Three years of marriage have taught me countless lessons about being a partner, a lover, even just a human being. I’m not perfect, but I’m also NOT DONE LEARNING.