"They said we'd never make it, but look how far we've come now, baby..."

Tomorrow marks our 10th wedding anniversary.  Our friend who sang at our reception (since we eloped) sang "You're Still The One" and it couldn't have been more fitting.  Family and friends alike tried talking us out of getting married.  We have had a very rocky road getting to this point, but I am so grateful that we didn't listen to everyone and stuck it out even when it seemed impossible to stay together.  Life hasn't always been good and we separated a few times earlier in our marriage, but we both knew that we didn't want to become another divorce statistic or to leave that legacy for our children, so here we are.  The past 2 years have been the best years of our marriage yet and I can truly say that we work as a team now to overcome whatever life hands us, rather than everything becoming a constant struggle against the world and eachother.  A friend and I were talking the other day about people who just out of the blue walk away from their marriages and/or families and how we don't understand how smeone can do that (except in extenuating circumstances, of course).  We were talking about how we just depend on our spouses so much, but not in an unhealthy way, more of a "our lives are so very intertwined with eachother" sort of way.  We work together with our spouses to encourage eachother, raise our children, meet our financial goals, and keep the day-to-day household tasks from overwhelming us.  Marriage can be such a blessing when you begin to look at our spouse as your partner, not as someone to meet all of your needs or as someone else who is placing demands on you.

I truly believe that many of our struggles early in our marriage were simply due to immaturity.  I was only 20 when we got married, and looking at the person I am now versus then seems like a different lifetime ago.  I have grown up and changed so much and things that used to be an issue to me seem so silly now.  I think a lot of it stemmed from me still trying to find who I was during that time.  Since Jeremy was also young, I feel that he was dealing with a lot of the same things that I was.  The closer I got to 25, the easier things seemed to become.  I am in no way against young marriages.  I just try to talk to young people I know that are getting married that you both will still do some changing as people, and you have to be willing to allow your spouse to do that and to encourage them to become the person God is calling them to be.  My husband will sometimes joke that I married a totally different person than I am married to now, and he is right in a lot of ways, but the thing is that the core things I loved about him are still there even though he dresses differently, listens to different music, has different hobbies, and wants different things out of life.  He is still one of the funniest people I know.  He still holds my hand when we're out and about and calls just to say hi.  He still loves to sing along to all of our favorite songs when we're in the car or even just sitting around at home.  He still loves to play cards with me before bed and to cuddle up and watch movies on the couch.  He isn't perfect (and neither am I!), but we are perfectly suited for eachother.  There are days when the kids are napping and we are doing something together and I think "I can't imagine being this comfortable doing this with anyone else"!  I can't wait to see what the future has in store for us!