My wife and I just hit our fifteen year wedding anniversary (and seventeen years together), which prompted me to reflect on our shared journey. Fifteen years sounds like a long time but in a lot of ways it feels like the blink of an eye.
It has been an eventful fifteen (or seventeen) years! During this time I’ve lost a Dad, gained a new Dad, we had three amazing kids, two painful miscarriages, moved house three times, bought a trailer tent, upsized to a caravan, started a salsa teaching company, had various job/career changes, and started home educating. I’m sure there’s a bunch of things that I’ve missed from that list, but even that list is exhausting to read back!
One of the readings at our wedding was about two trees growing together and becoming intertwined. It is a mental image that has really stuck with me and which captures my feelings beautifully.
We’ve had a ton of good times together and I look forward to a whole ton more. We’ve also had some more challenging times, and reflecting on all of this has reminded me of many things to be thankful for.
I’m thankful that we both had parents who clearly worked at their relationships. I think parents form a significant role model for relationships, and having parents who demonstrated working through hard times stuck with me. It isn’t all going to be smooth sailing, but having a model that shows that, and working through the tough times, feels like a good starting point.
Another thing that I think both sets of parents demonstrated is respect. I don’t think it is something that I was necessarily conciously aware of when Emilie and I met, but looking back I think that respect and trust are vitally important foundations.
I’m thankful to Emilie that we can share mutual trust, mutual respect, and open communication.
Lest this turn too serious, I’ll add that I’m also thankful to Emilie for her crazy side, her sense of fun, and our shared love of bad puns!
I’m thankful for having found my favourite dance partner, my sense of home, my inspiration, the strength holding me up when I need it, my partner on this journey through life, the person I love to see when I go to sleep each night and wake each morning, the person who brings out the best in me and helps me as I strive to do better, … the list goes on.
In short, I’m thankful for having found the love of my life!
love marriage