who did you marry?
February 7th to 14th is National Marriage Week. to celebrate, i will be sharing some thoughts and stories about marriage to help encourage you to strengthen your own relationships. i hope these posts will help you nurture your own relationship and rekindle the love you have for one another.
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| one of our first dates. we're such babies! |
for our first date, Adam took me to see the Japanese version of "Shall We Dance" at BYU International Cinema and to see the modern love exhibit at the Museum of Art on campus.
[everything was free. you know, poor college kids :)]
we held hands, he kissed my cheek, and i flirted and played games like any girl did at that age...
it was sweet, simple and perfect.
[well, besides me playing games]
fast forward 4 years...
a few weeks before we moved to Arizona, we found out that International Cinema was showing "Shall We Dance" again and thought it would be a perfect last hurrah.
we held hands, kissed on the lips, and i flirted for a good reason this time.
it was sweet, simple, and perfect.
after a hard year, it was wonderful to be able to take some time to just be together and act like young people in love again, flirting and courting each other all over.
we needed that time to reconnect and remember the person we were attracted to in the first place.
school, work, babies, stress, life have ways of making us forget about what is really important.
as much as Adam and i see each other, there are times where i don't feel like i really know him.
we are both constantly changing and evolving. life has a way of doing that.
and when we don't make time to reconnect, instead of just talking about Elijah or how his test was that day, it feels like we're just roommates trying to get by with superficial conversation.
i remember my professor telling us once that most divorces happen after kids are grown up and gone.
he said couples who have been together for 20 years, who seem to have it all together, can have everything come crumbling down because of one simple problem:
they don't know each other anymore.
he talked about how during the years they are together, their lives are so busy with raising children, starting careers (and possibly finishing school), running businesses, taking kids to soccer, family vacations, and more that it is hard to take time away to just be alone.
and at the end of it all, when all the distractions are taken away and the kids are moved out, couples look at each other and say, "who are you? what happened to the person i married?"
well they changed!
you changed.
life changes things.
that lesson has always stuck with me.
i don't want to be looking at Adam 20 years for now, wondering who he is and why i used to love him.
i want to be able to change together for the better,
grow together, not apart.
me and Adam are still not very good at making sure we have a consistent date night
[school life has a way of doing that].
but we are working hard to take time for one another doing simple day-to-day things so we can continually remember why we fell in love.
[everything was free. you know, poor college kids :)]
we held hands, he kissed my cheek, and i flirted and played games like any girl did at that age...
it was sweet, simple and perfect.
[well, besides me playing games]
fast forward 4 years...
a few weeks before we moved to Arizona, we found out that International Cinema was showing "Shall We Dance" again and thought it would be a perfect last hurrah.
we held hands, kissed on the lips, and i flirted for a good reason this time.
it was sweet, simple, and perfect.
after a hard year, it was wonderful to be able to take some time to just be together and act like young people in love again, flirting and courting each other all over.
we needed that time to reconnect and remember the person we were attracted to in the first place.
school, work, babies, stress, life have ways of making us forget about what is really important.
as much as Adam and i see each other, there are times where i don't feel like i really know him.
we are both constantly changing and evolving. life has a way of doing that.
and when we don't make time to reconnect, instead of just talking about Elijah or how his test was that day, it feels like we're just roommates trying to get by with superficial conversation.
i remember my professor telling us once that most divorces happen after kids are grown up and gone.
he said couples who have been together for 20 years, who seem to have it all together, can have everything come crumbling down because of one simple problem:
they don't know each other anymore.
he talked about how during the years they are together, their lives are so busy with raising children, starting careers (and possibly finishing school), running businesses, taking kids to soccer, family vacations, and more that it is hard to take time away to just be alone.
and at the end of it all, when all the distractions are taken away and the kids are moved out, couples look at each other and say, "who are you? what happened to the person i married?"
well they changed!
you changed.
life changes things.
that lesson has always stuck with me.
i don't want to be looking at Adam 20 years for now, wondering who he is and why i used to love him.
i want to be able to change together for the better,
grow together, not apart.
me and Adam are still not very good at making sure we have a consistent date night
[school life has a way of doing that].
but we are working hard to take time for one another doing simple day-to-day things so we can continually remember why we fell in love.
------------------------------------------------------
National Marriage Week {link-up}
did you know that February 7th-14th is National Marriage Week?
i first found out about it when i started writing for StrongerMarriage.org.
while we get ready to celebrate the day of love, i think it is a great reminder that we should be doing things to continually strengthen our relationships instead of just on that one day.
on the Marriage Week website it says,
"From February 7th to 14th every year— is a collaborative effort to encourage many diverse groups to strengthen individual marriages, reduce the divorce rate, and build a stronger marriage culture, which in turn helps curtail poverty and benefits children. Together we can make more impact than working alone."
this week to celebrate National Marriage Week i will be sharing some posts relating to marriage/relationships and i would love to read your posts as well!
[you can read my past National Marriage Week posts here.]
if you have written a post about love or relationships/marriage [or even Valentine's Day!] link it up below so we can all read it and celebrate this week together.
{past & present posts accepts}
i would love to help make National Marriage Week a big, online success!
so with all your help and with all your posts i think we can make that happen and create a big celebration. :)
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