9 years

9 years. That's how long we have been married.

I find it too trite to say that our love for one another has grown each day. I'm pretty sure there was a long span of time that this statement wasn't true.  Our love for one another has changed. Our appreciation for each other has grown deeper. We laugh differently than we did as newlyweds. Our roles within the marriage continue to develop and mature with age.

I often fail to vocalize my appreciate to Dan for the little things he does, those small every day things that I take for granted.

I love that he warms the face cloth every night and always lets me have it first.

I love that when he's first to the toothbrushes, he'll put toothpaste on mine as well.

I love that when he fills his water cup, he almost always fills mine at the same time.

I find it funny that when he does something annoying or silly and I call him on it, he'll turn around and say in a long drawn out, "You're stuck with me....FOREVVVVVVVVVER!" while holding out his hand and pointing at his wedding ring.

I love that Dan washes dishes by hand. Anything that doesn't fit in the dishwasher, or that is labeled hand-wash only, he washes. Every Single Day. I especially love that he washes the muffin tins.

I love that he will call, "Not it" to changing a dirty diaper, but end up changing it anyway.

I love that Dan will choose to navigate our journeys, rather than drive. Plus, having my own personal Dan-Dan (as opposed to TomTom) is amazing, especially when he tells me he's "recalculating route."

I love that Dan makes breakfast on weekends.

I love that Dan and I share night duty with the kids. He'll get up and bring the baby to bed, I'll feed the baby and pass the baby back to Dan so he can return it to bed.

I love that Dan appreciates the little things in life, like a homemade dessert or a virgin bed (the first night on clean sheets).

I remember when in pre-martial counseling, we were asked why we loved each other. I distinctly remember saying that I love Dan's servant heart. I see it every day in the little things he does. He's made these little things habits, to serve, to value and cherish me.

We've had rough times in our marriage, mostly due to sleep deprivation. I distinctly remember during those three and a half months that we didn't sleep for more than forty-five minutes at a time, I would wake up every morning angry at Dan. Now don't get me wrong, he didn't do anything wrong. But I was mad. I was mad that we weren't sleeping. I was sleep deprived. But I made wrong choices and chose to nitpick everything he did. I remember lying in bed, thinking about how much I didn't like the way things were. So, I devised a plan to leave. I'd take the kids to my moms and live with her. Somehow it dawned on me that if I left and took the kids, that I would be waking up every night with the kids ON MY OWN. And I couldn't do it. I literally stayed in our marriage because there was no strength to get up every 45 minutes on my own to take care of the kids. So instead of leaving, I did the hard thing and changed my behaviour. I stopped nitpicking. I worked hard at not being mad at Dan, but mad at the situation. We worked hard at getting the baby to sleep longer stretches so we could be better people. We joke about that time in our lives now. We know that it wasn't really our marriage that needed work. We just needed to sleep and things improved exponentially.

I like that we realize when our marriage needs work. We both enjoy spending time together and when life gets busy, we will often take some time to rebuild our marriage and connect with one another.

If I had to give one piece of marriage advice to newlyweds, it would be this: Find out what works for your marriage and do it. Then, be willing to change and evolve as time goes on. What works for one couple may not work for another.  What worked in year one, may not work well in year nine. But you need to find what works for both of you at that time period in life.

The couple we were when we got married has changed, grown, and developed into a different couple.  But one thing remains the same. We still love each other and we will be together, FOREVVVVVER!