Ten Years and Counting...IN HIS WORDS

My husband felt inspired to share some words following our trip last week. It is amazing to see where our relationship has come over these years. We have enjoyed many happy times and almost as many stressful, broken times. Many nights of tears and me feeling like a failure as a wife. Yet even in our marriage, when we fall down, we get back up again. Our love has grown and it is the on-going daily choices that bring us to this milestone. Thank you Lord for seeing us through the tough times and for this man. I'm looking forward to celebrating our 30th anniversary on 11/22/33!

IN HIS WORDS... 

On November 22, 2013 my wife and I celebrated our tenth anniversary by spending several days in Virginia Beach. It was a wonderful trip made even more special by things we couldn’t have planned like a seventy degree sunny day for our anniversary day, free tickets to places we wanted to go, and a spontaneous horse ride down the beach in front of our hotel. Because this was our tenth anniversary we thought that was kind of special.

I don’t know why but there is something about ten that seems a little more special than six, or eight, or even nine so instead of just going out to dinner we wanted to do what our means could afford us so we splurged on a four day vacation to celebrate this ten year anniversary, and it was while we were on this vacation that we began to realize what an achievement it is in this society and age to reach ten years.

Almost as soon as we got to Virginia Beach and began to answer the question of “why are you here?” with “it’s our tenth anniversary” we began to notice a theme because of the often response of “wow, you made it that long!”. It didn’t take us long to realize that making it ten years really is quite an achievement and worth celebrating to the best of your ability. It also reminded us and impressed upon us the importance of taking time for each other. It is so easy to get busy with life that we forget that for a marriage to work, it takes work and a lot of it but it also takes fun, laughs, walks in the moonlight, dinner by candlelight or whatever else it is that allows the two of you to connect on every level; mind, body, and soul because without it you may well become part of the ever increasing divorce rate.

The issue of divorce has become such an issue that it was actually the basis for the sales pitch of a time share that we took two hours of our day to go listen to. They offered us so much free stuff that we couldn’t pass it up and we were kind of curious about it anyway. It just really surprised me that they would go as far as to use the issue of divorce which, according to them, is primarily caused by couples not spending enough time together i.e. not owning a time share, to sell time shares. When we said no thanks, we were basically told our marriage would fail if we didn’t immediately purchase a $26,000 time share. What a joke.

It is a little disturbing that we ran into the issue of divorce so much while celebrating our tenth anniversary but a lot of it was talking to people whose lives had been touched by it who were surprised we made it ten years. I think it’s also a good reminder of the amount of focus we need to have on each other as supposedly the 10-20 years are the hardest. Focusing on your marriage is an easier thing to do when you are busy living life and doing the things you purpose to do. But when life is busy living you, hitting you with the things it purposes for you and you are busy trying find a way to adjust to it, it is much more difficult to remember to take the time to do those things for your marriage. However, I am confident that our next ten years will be full of love, life, and adventure.  

- ADRIAN