Why My Marriage Will Always Be My Main Priority

See this handsome guy in this picture? That’s my husband and THE most important human in my life. We’ve been together for 6 years now (married for 2 1/2 years and dating 3 1/2 years prior to that). While speaking the words SIX YEARS aloud sounds like a long time, it’s felt like it’s gone by in a blink of an eye.

While these six years together have been the best years of our lives, they’ve also come with a ton of hard life lessons and heaps of growth both individually and together.

We’ve gone through job losses, family sickness, the heartbreak of having to put down one of our dogs, racking up debt and then paying all that debt off together. We’ve gone to NYC at Christmas, snorkled in Mexico’s blue waters, drank aperol Spritz’s in Milan, waded into the Blue Grotto in Capri and acted like five year olds in Disney more times than we can count. And lately, we’ve been part of our favorite adventure yet - being first-time homeowners!

We’ve made it through the highs, lows and in-betweens not by chance ,but through intention.

The intention to to keep our marriage a priority.

The intention to focus on one another instead of the million distractions that could come between us.

,The intention to have the tough conversations even when it feels like our hearts are cracking open when we’re having them.

The intention to call each other out on our bullshit and not sugar coat a single thing.

It’s still too early in our relationship to have “been through it all” , but we’ve been through a lot and we’ve come out of every scenario more secure in our relationship, more confident in one another and more in love. We’ve found that the true beauty of marriage lies in experiencing all of the good, bad and ugly together and remaining a TEAM throughout it all.

Below we’ve shared our favorite ways we keep our marriage a priority:

1- Create a family manifesto. Every single December, right before the New Year, we sit down and create what we call our “Family Manifesto” — a series of statements and intentions to guide our actions throughout the coming year. Not only is it a blast to create this manifesto together each year, but when things get hard, schedules get crazy and life is just being life , it’s your reminder to reset and focus on what’s most important. We also recommend placing your manifesto somewhere where you can see it regularly. See below four our 2019 manifesto .

2 - Find the fun. This has been Rod’s family saying ever since I met him and is something we incorporate into everyday! We are always seeking out ways to find the fun. This is everything from planning vacations that we can look forward to together, making up silly songs to sing to or dog or just being downright goofy. Life can be heavy so we find the fun whenever we can.

3- Compliment more than you complain. This is one that took me a long time to learn within our relationship. I used to complain SO MUCH over the tiniest of things that didn’t matter. What we’ve found is that you should be complimenting each other more than you complain about one another. Complaining is a complete relationship and emotion erosion. We’ve found that all it does is foster negative emotions. When we’re annoyed or irritated with one another, we instead find the things that we can compliment. It changes the tone and our emotions in the moment.

4-Pick your head up. The heart of this is about BEING PRESENT. Pick you head up from your phone, your computer or your book and NOTICE your partner. Really focus on them in a conversation and really listen. Give your partner the time and attention you’d want to receive yourself.

5. Forgive yourself and each other. Things are going to come up. You’re going to get into fights and there are days neither one of you will be at your best. This is when you need compassion for yourself and your partner. You’re both doing the best you can so cut yourself some slack.

We hope this little tips will help you nurture your relationships so that you can continue growing, together.