What happens after sixteen years of marriage?  Is it still wedded bliss or is it a nightmare you can’t wait to get out of?  Well if you’re lucky, it’ll be as close to wedded bliss as the two of you can be.  What I mean by wedded bliss is not that when you first start going out and everything feels so fresh and new and you just feel so owey goowey with each other or even that first year of marriage where you can tell the couple is newlyweds.  I’m talking about how after sixteen years of marriage that you still talk about your spouse in a good way, especially when he or she is not around to hear it.  How after you have gotten into a huge argument and you’re able to talk through it so you are okay again.  How when you talk to someone new about your spouse that sometimes he or she will ask you if you’re newlyweds because it seems like most people today that if they have been married over five years you rarely hear someone talk about his or her spouse in a good way or that he or she seem to just tolerate his or her spouse.

This is how Keith and I are with each other.  We can honestly say without hesitation that we love each other.  No we aren’t in the infatuation where you can barely see any faults with the other person love nor do we still have on our rose-colored glasses that seem to be put on for that first few years of marriage to where it seems like the other person is just so perfect.  No, we are at a point that our love is what most people call being truly IN love with one another.  Not sort of love, not in lust, but truly IN love with each other.

To know that thirty-four years from now that Keith and I will still be together for our fifty year anniversary is something that just makes me smile from the inside out.  I thank the Lord everyday that Keith was put into my live over sixteen years ago and that we made a decision to be together for all eternity.  He truly is the love of my life.

There are many things that make a marriage work.  One is trust.  One is communication.  If you have one but not the other, it’ll be almost impossible to make your marriage work.  Some people do but it’s not an easy road and you probably feel miserable inside.  When you have both of those, marriage has something else that’s just as important as well.  What’s so important you might ask.  Well, it’s compromise.  Marriage is all about compromise and accepting your other half just the way he or she is.  Sometimes compromise is not meeting in the middle either.  There are going to be many times where you may have to come more than half way but in the end it works because you have made your other half happy.  And sometimes you’ll get frustrated because you feel you have to come more than half way way too often.  I guess when you love each other, in the end, it’s all worth it because you know you’re with the one person whom you love more than anything else in the world and just want to make him or her happy.

This is how Keith and I are all the time.  And it seems like Keith is always the one who comes more than halfway.  I can be such a stubborn pig-headed mule sometimes.  I can become so rigid about it.  Quite frankly I think I would drive most men nuts.  But Keith accepts me just the way I am.  He loves me no matter what.  We get into huge arguments but in the end we always make up and know how much we love one another.  I guess one of the best ways I can describe Keith as is that he is one of the few people I know to come as close to having the patience of Job.  As for me, I feel like I’m the complete opposite.  I feel like I’m about as patient as a kid on Christmas Eve having to wait those few hours until Christmas morning before I get to open my presents.  I lose my patience so easily.  Yet Keith just takes it.  I’m sure it’s not that he wants to but he is just so patient with my impatience.  Sometimes we get into a fight over it but he is almost always the one that shows his patience and is able to calm the situation down.

You know when people say opposites attract, I think we broke the mold.  There are so many things we are completely opposite on yet I think that’s how we ultimately complement each other and why we work.  I can say without hesitation that he is truly the love of my life and I feel lucky he has chosen to be with me and put up with all my shenanigans.