Happy Anniversary

It was our 2nd anniversary a few days ago and I thought I would reflect back on what I've learned so far through our 2 years of marriage. 3 years of dating before that did prepare us for marriage, but I believe we'll always be changing, adapting and learning from each other.

What I learned after 1 year of marriage:

• Getting married young doesn’t mean a hard 1st year
• We got married at 22 and a lot of people said that our age would mean the first year would be a harder year than usual – it wasn’t, it actually was pretty easy and stress free. No kids, no money woes, no family emergencies, no deployment.
• Communication is key
• See the bullet point below
• I learned to talk about things that bother/upset me instead of holding it in
• I am Queen of "It’s fine". But I learned to talk about it and ask for help instead of trying to do it all on my own.
• Marriage does change the relationship – even if you’ve been living together already
• But for the better. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I can’t explain exactly how it changed, but it did.
• Vacations are important
• It’s important to get away from work, school (at this time), and just spend time with the 2 of you exploring new places.
• Rely on each other to cover your own weaknesses
• I’m an organizer, he’s a planner, together we get a lot done!
• Football really can be interesting to watch
• You still need girls night/guys night
• It’s important to keep a social life and existence outside your marriage. Not that one is excluded from the other, but you need to find a balance to stay grounded. And honestly, do any of you have a husband that will was SATC reruns.
• I loved him more after one year of marriage than the day we got married. 

What I learned after 2 years of marriage:

• The second year can be harder than the 1st
• We had a very easy first year. We didn’t have any of the usual stressors that trip people up during their first year, no kids, no debt, both had jobs…The second year brought some stressors.
• Unemployment is a huge stressor
• Soldier graduated from college this year and along with graduation went his paycheck, he was unemployed for about a month and it was the most stressful month. I know now that I didn’t need to stress. We were smart, we have several savings accounts. One for big picture (house down payment), one for fun (vacations and toys) and one for emergencies (6 months salary) so we were covered financially. I just tend to stress about money more than I should. Can you tell I’m the penny pincher and bookkeeper for our family :)
• Date nights need to happen regularly
• just like with vacations; after a busy, stressful workweek it’s important to take time for each other, undistracted by the tv or internet and reconnect. We didn’t do date nights as often in the first part of our 2nd year and found that we weren’t communicating as well. We went to regular date nights and now our communication is back on track.
• You still need to get dolled up for date nights
• Keep the spice in date night – need I say more?...
• Communication is key
• Notice a pattern here?!
• I don’t want to have kids yet
• Soldier does, I want more time just us, we’ve come to a compromise..
• Soldier eats his peanuts whole – shell and all
• Even when you think you know it all, he’ll find a way to surprise you.
• Absence can make the heart grow fonder
• Still need girls night/guys night
• He just can’t swoon over Eric from True Blood like my girl friends can
• I love him more now than 2 years ago.