Marriage is not easy!

On a more serious note today, I'm going to talk about marriage! It's a scary word to some and yet an exciting word for others.

When you first enter into a relationship with someone, most times everything is coming up roses. The passion is there. You can't stand to be away from the other person. You want to spend every waking moment with this person and be with them forever, right? A lot of couples (especially young ones) are quick to jump into marriage. I am one of them, even though I wasn't necessarily "young". My husband and I were married one year after we met. We were inseparable from day one and made many plans to grow old together as cliche as that may sound.

As time goes on, couples get into a routine. Nothing is exciting anymore. The little habits that you used to consider cute now just makes your blood boil! Stresses of children and money problems get in the way and all of this usually ends up in a full out war between man and wife.

Marriage is hard work! It's not as easy as it looks to most.My husband and I got into this routine and things just kept escalating between us. We were arguing almost every day. I would get angry at him for stupid little things, he would become defensive and angry at me for it. It was a vicious cycle and finally got to the point where my husband thought he needed some time to himself to think things over. It was supposed to just be temporary but our separation ended up lasting for 9 months! It was the hardest 9 months of my life. I spent so many nights crying myself to sleep. Hating myself because I felt that if I had been a better wife he wouldn't have left. I spent a lot of time doing research on marriagebulders.com, which has a lot of great advice for marital problems. Even though the situation was painful, it forced me to look deep into myself and face the things that I didn't like about myself and work on fixing them so that I could be a better person and be a better wife in the end. I talked to other married couples and got a lot of great advice. One of the things that always stuck in my head is to put each other first. I put my husband first and he puts me first. Our goal is to always make sure the other one is happy!

My husband and I have been back together for a little over a month now. So far, so good, but there is always that fear in the back of my head that things will go back to the way they were. We have both learned to be more considerate of the other person and not to take the other person for granted.

If you are thinking about marriage, my words of advice would be: Put each other first, communicate and LISTEN when the other person is talking to you. Don't get defensive immediately just listen and try to see things from their point of view. If you feel yourself getting angry just leave the situation and talk about it calmly at another time. Remember the things that you love about your spouse and over look the things that get on your nerves because usually those things are unimportant. Always make your spouse feel important and loved. Always make time for just the two of you with no kids and no other couples. If you sincerely love the person you married be willing to negotiate to make it work!

*the pic is me and my hubby*