SIX YEARS!!! I’ve officially been married for a boring, “medium” amount of time. 😉
Ha. In my pre-marriage years, if someone told me they had bene married for 1-4 years, I would kind of think of them as “new” at marriage. And if someone said they had been married for 5+ years, every number was the same. There is exactly no difference between 7 years and 16 years in my brain…they’re both just a “medium” amount of time spent together. (And then anything longer than like 25 years is a “long” time.)
So, yup. I’m in that medium zone now! Haha.
Six years…what does six years of marriage feel like?
Oddly, it feels very early and young. In the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much time Nate and I still have left together (Lord willing!). I’ve specifically been thinking about how much time will be left after we’re done raising kids. Right now, we’re in the thick of it with two toddlers at home with us. But when they graduate from high school, Nate and I will (hopefully) still have decades of life left together! So I’ve been thinking about how important it is that Nate and I stay best friends and really, truly enjoy spending time with each other, and continue “getting to know each other” at every different phase of our lives.
(This is part of why we’re both prioritizing trips together without the kids, like this one and this one, and regular date nights where we can just get out and do things that we love together.)
Year six is where I’m realizing how easy it is to fall into a rut of being roommates and co-parents. Ugh. It is soooo easy, y’all! The days can go something like this: wake up, squeeze in our workouts, briefly run into each other in the kitchen and discuss logistics of the day, work, play with kiddos, scramble to figure out what’s for dinner, do bathtime/bedtime for the boys, collapse on the couch and watch a show together. I mean, it works, and we can easily find a rhythm, but it’s crazy how easy it is to “groundhog day” that routine over and over again without any meaningful connection or conversations or memorable experiences together that make us grow stronger as a couple.
Anyway, can I say that year six is the first year I’ve really accepted the amount of work it takes to stay married? I’ve always hated associating that word with marriage…I just want marriage to be fun! But the cool thing is that as I’ve accepted that working at this is a necessity, marriage has also gotten a lot more fun.
We had a bright, sunny day in Austin this week, so I was listening to a 90s country playlist (I am who I am..) and George Strait Living and Living Well came on. And I really listened to the lyrics:
There’s a difference in
Living and living well
You can’t have it all
All by yourself
Something’s always missing
‘Til you share it with someone else
There’s a difference in living and living well
And I really like those words. I live by the belief that life is more worthwhile when you’re sharing it with someone. It feels good to have someone to lean on, and it feels equally amazing to know that you’re always there for someone else as their support system. And mostly, it’s just crazy fun and fulfilling to have a person to share the good parts of life with.
*And pleeaase know that I’m not strictly speaking about marriage here! I think that marriage is great and I’m happy to be in it, and I also think there are many, many ways to find joy and fulfillment in this life. So whether it’s a long term partner, or a really close friend, or a child, or a fur baby, I just love the intention that “something’s always missing ‘til you share it with someone else.” There is this deep beauty in finding your pod and sharing life with those beings. It gets really good when you get to the point where you have those days where you drive eachother crazy, and you work through the things, and you find an even greater amount of fulfillment on the other side.
That’s 6 years, y’all.
I’ve written this post every single year on my wedding anniversary If you want to read some of the earlier posts, here they are:
