And here we are today, celebrating our 15th Anniversary. (Well, a week ago yesterday.) We’re happier together now than we’ve been for the past decade. What??!! Yes, it’s true. Our friends and family might be surprised to hear this- we looked okay on the outside, but we were very not okay in our relationship.
For us, each of us was unhappy within ourselves, and then we did not bring our best selves to our relationship. We had a slow and insidious decline of our marriage, over a decade long; it was barely noticeable until we couldn’t NOT see it anymore. We were no longer on the same team; we no longer supported each other to be the people we wanted to be; we no longer respected and honored each other as we should.
Because we were at ground zero, we had a unique opportunity to decide if we wanted to be together and fight for this relationship rather than fight with each other- because that was no longer an option. We had nowhere to go but up or out, and as always- there were choices.
In the end, we picked each other again, but this was just the beginning. The good news is: it worked- we’re happy together. We started to rebuild our relationship and our love. We took the time to find happiness within ourselves before bringing each of us to our relationship. I did my work, he did his work, and we did our work together. Let’s be clear, this was not an easy journey, and it’s certainly not a “one and done;” we have until the rest of forever to work on and improve our relationship, but we’re doing it, and we are happier for it.
