10 Things We Have Learned In 10 Years.

     In honour of our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday, (June 27th) I wanted to share 10 things God has taught us and helped us through the rough years and into the good years. I'm not here to brag or anything else. Simply here to share what we have learned. I am proud of us and praise God for the work that He has done in us. We don't have a perfect marriage, because there is no such thing. But ours is pretty great and we are more in love than we were on our wedding day.

1. Don't criticize your spouse in public. It's rude, disrespectful and awkward for everyone else. I spent several years doing this and was called out a handful of times for it. I have learned not to do it and for the most part, I am good at keeping my grievances with hubby between the two of us.
2. Sacrifice. Last Christmas I had a chance to practice the art of sacrifice. Hubby wanted to watch a bunch of Christmas movies by Christmas Eve. I did the math and discovered that we needed to watch one every day with two or three grace days in the mix over the course of two weeks. Long story short, it was exhausting but worth it. It was hard because our daily routine at the time left no time for me in the evenings which was hard. But that's how sacrifice works. You can read all about that in a previous blog post. Hubby also got really good at sacrificing in the last six months as well. His secret is doing that action for God and out of love for me.
3. Communication. Communication is vital to a strong and healthy marriage and as you may already know, it's about more than just the words that you use. It's how to say it and how your spouse hears it. We have learned to say, 'I know it's not what you intended, but this is what I just heard." It's about assuming the best in your spouse and reminding yourself that when they say something that hurts you, they likely didn't intend to hurt you.
4. Leadership and submission. Hubby didn't know how to lead and I didn't know how to submit. I also thought submission made you weak and had no desire to feel that way. As you might imagine that leads to chaos. God has since taught hubby how to lead and myself to submit and now we are rocking our respective roles.
5. Teasing. Hubby has spent the last 10 years teasing me and I have spent the last 9 1/2 years thinking he was trying to annoy/irritate me. God openedup my eyes and I saw the light and learned that his teasing was flirting all along. There is a lot more teasing and laughter in our home now and we love it.
6. Caretaker. From day one I have been a terrible nurse and cannot care for my hubby when he is sick. He has always been good at it but I never was. I think I wrote about this a while ago so I won't discuss it in detail.
7. Listening to hubby. We both struggle with pride and are both working on humility. For me, I think I'm always right and hubby is wrong. In reality, he is right more often than I am. One of the activities we enjoyed yesterday was mini-putting. We were hot and tired from the paddle boarding and everything else we had done that day. Hubby wanted to go mini putting and I wanted a nap. I decided to have a good attitude and go putting. Within a few minutes of playing, I had regained my energy and was having a blast. I looked at hubby and said, "You were right Sweetie. I guess I should listen to you more often." He responded with, "Finally, I've been waiting to hear that for 10 years." We had a good laugh and continued to build the best anniversary weekend yet.
8. Playing. We went down to the pool at our hotel today. I intended to read my book, and hubby wanted to swim. Not long after I decided to get into the pool and join him. At first, I decided I didn't want my hair getting wet but soon realized that by not fully submerging myself I was missing out on sharing a fun memory with my hubby and that I would regret it. I could wash my hair after and redo it. So I did, I got into the fun and we created another great memory to add to our life. I learned that there is a time to be serious and a time to play.
9. Serving each other with our strengths. We have always known that one of the reasons why God brought us together was because our strengths and weaknesses complement each other beautifully. Recently we have been using our strengths to serve each other in new ways. So hubby is an introvert and only has so much energy for people. That being said, he is working hard at being more social. So on days when we want to eat out, but want a healthier option than a drive-thru burger, but hubby doesn't have the energy to talk to the people in Subway, I will go into Subway and order on both our behalves. It's a gesture that I am happy to do and he is thrilled to receive it. Hubby serves me by making sure that I don't put myself down and checks in to make sure I'm taking care of myself in regard to my eating habits. I am really good at criticizing myself and not taking care of myself and he is really good at keeping an eye on me.
10. Not letting a petty argument ruin our day. Like every normal and honest couple, we argue. We have learned two things about arguing. A) Lots of your petting arguments happen because one or both of you are tired, hungry or frustrated about some external thing. Once we figured that out it helped us to give more grace to diffuse dumb arguments and fix the root cause, if possible. B) we also learned how to not let a petty argument ruin a good day. Yesterday, I did something dumb and it upset hubby. We then had a little argument over it. We then worked through the problem and continued to enjoy our anniversary trip.

    I wrote out this list this past week and then started journaling about the items today. Then this afternoon I started typing it up and it started to sink in how much God has transformed our marriage over the last few years and how thankful we are for what He has done for us.

I pray this blesses, encourages and maybe even teaches you something new today.

God Bless

~Hannah

Port Dover for our 10th anniversary.