I first met my husband in December 2003. I was at a party, and I was not having a good time. In walked this cute guy with bright blue eyes and a baseball cap with his friend. My mood immediately lifted. We flirted back and forth for a bit and I remember thinking, I bet he has a girlfriend. He’s too cute/funny to not have a girlfriend.
I had heard of him before, we worked together at a large customer service center for a vehicle finance company, but I hadn’t seen him.
We had a mutual friend though, and after that first meeting, she started to invite him with us when we would go out. She would tease me about him alot, but I was convinced he wouldn’t be into me.
One night we all went out as a group and I noticed my friend was dancing around him. I remember feeling incredibly jealous, but noticed that he was staring at me the whole time.
That was the night we had our first kiss.
We started dating, kind of off and on (my fault, I was fickle!). After the last time I broke things off with him, he seemed to get the message and started distancing himself from me. I guess it took having him out of my life to realize I simply could not live without him.
I told him how I felt (after several passive aggressive attempts to get him to make the first move), and we’ve been together ever since.
We dated a year, were engaged a year and got married at a beautiful resort in Jamaica in a gazebo on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean :
We knew from very early on that we wanted to have children. So a bit over a year after our wedding, we had our first child Noah. When Noah was 14 months old we got pregnant with our daughter Elizabeth.
We’ve been married almost 4 1/2 years now, and are just as in love (probably more!) as the day we got married. We are the best of friends and we very naturally fell into a rhythm as parents. We rarely fight, and when we do, we’re over it pretty much right away. Being married to my husband is never hard. We’re not perfect, but we respect each other, we are not selfish with our time or our affection for each other, and we parent as a team.
We accept each others shortcomings and we rarely ever nag on each other. When my husband comes home after a long day of work, he doesn’t survey the house and judge me on it’s cleanliness (we’d be in trouble!), instead he sees his happy kids and his happy wife and joins right in. I overflow with pride over what my husband has accomplished professionally and I praise him for his accomplishments. Our life is never a competition. Between each other, or with others.
I feel very strongly for a marriage to work you MUST respect each other. You MUST not hold a record of your grievances. You MUST compromise and meet each other halfway when you differ in opinion. You MUST put each other and your family at the top of your priority list (we abide by 1.God 2. Spouse 3. Children…in that order always). Most of all though, you MUST communicate.
These are the things that work to make our marriage solid and progressive.
You might wonder where this fits in on the topic of Family Friendly Frugality. It’s not going to save you money and it doesn’t come with a coupon. A solid marriage and a happy family doesn’t have a price tag attached. And of course families come in all shapes and forms. My goal of this blog isn’t just to save you money, I desire much more than that. I want you to leave my blog feeling inspired. Inspired to strive to be happy in all areas of your life, to be frugal, and to be creative!
How sweet! <3