In less than a month, I will have been married for 15 years.
My best marriage advice is to not expect your mate to be your end all and be all. You need to have your own satisfaction, your own gratification, your own happiness. Your own identity.
It will strengthen your marriage.
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| At the Lake Summer 2011 |
So often, when we meet someone and fall in love, we just want to be with them all the time and do everything they want to do. But, eventually, if we keep doing that we will lose ourselves and then we will be unhappy with out partner when they don't live up to something that we want or expect them to live up to.
Find your own bliss...that thing or those things that make you happy, that make you you.
Maybe it's photography or cooking or yoga or sewing or knitting or cooking or learning about wine. Maybe it's your work. Maybe it's your style. Maybe it's the books you love to read. Make time for that.
And let your partner make time for their own bliss, too. Encourage them. Believe me, it helps to have a partner with their own interests when it comes time to buy gifts.
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| At a Dave Matthews concert at the Beacon Theatre, NYC. |
Jason and I both love to cook, we both love craft beer, we both enjoy photography and yoga. We do many of those things together. We can talk about them for hours. We compliment each other and learn from each other.
But we also have our own interests. I have this blog, writing, homeschooling, knitting and making jewelry. Jason watches sports on TV and does projects in his workshop, he gardens and learns about plants and flowers, he loves StumbleUpon and is always looking for trivia, he listens to NPR religiously, he recycles exhaustively. We need these things to make us our own people so that when we come together, we have something that is unique, something we feel we can hold on to. It makes us stronger as individuals and as a couple by allowing us to feel that we each have a place, a say, our own person.
We share goals. We want the same things out of life. We love our girls. We would never let the other down intentionally. But we also have our own thing that makes us tick, makes us hum, makes us feel ALIVE.
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| With the girls, Christmas 2010 |
So, what is your Best Marital Advice?
How do you keep the magic in your relationship?
