Happy Friday, Lovelies!!!   Today is a very special day for me and my family.  It’s my parents’ 39th wedding anniversary!  You heard me, THIRTY-NINE years!  That’s a rarity nowadays.  These two have stuck together through the thick and thin and are more in love now than ever.  Their marriage is the absolute definition of what true everlasting love really is.  For as long as they have been together my mom STILL gets all gussied up every day just so she can look pretty for dad, they STILL hold hands when walking through the mall and they STILL put each other before themselves.  Tyler (my husband) and I are so very blessed to have such amazing role models for our marriage.  So, I decided to share some of my mother’s wisdom on how to make marriage work.  After all, it would be selfish if I kept it to myself…

Side Note:  I love my mom and dad’s wedding picture.  My mom was 20 and my dad was 19… AND it was the 1970′s… Seriously, how about that HUGE bow on my mom’s head and that rockin’ lace printed tux with a pink  shirt!!!  Hahaha!  I get a ridiculously large grin on my face everytime I look at it.  Random fact about my parents wedding day:  They BOTH had the Swine Flu that day.  They were such troopers!

How did you know that dad was the one?  Hmmmm.  How did I know he was the one?  First, I don’t believe in love at first sight.  It’s actually lust at first sight – just physical attraction.  You have to get to know each other before you know if it’s truly love.  When I first met John, I thought he was the cutest guy I’d ever seen.  I also loved the way his skin smelled – and still do.  I’m not talking about the cologne he wore, just the clean smell of his neck.  We met in Square Dance Club in High School in September of 1969;  he was 15 and I was 16.   John was nothing but fun to be around.  We found humor in all the same things, and sometimes, even then, didn’t have to say a word, just looked at the same thing, people, animals, etc., and burst into laughter.  He can ALWAYS make me laugh, and the older you get the more important that is in a relationship.   We didn’t have a lot of money to date, so we spent a lot of time watching TV at his house or mine, or playing pool at my house, so we talked a lot, laughed a lot and got to know each other.   He was Baptist, just like me, came to church with me, and I knew within a few short months he wasn’t just the cutest and most fun, but I was just crazy about him.  My mom always said, “Before you get married, be sure his head is the one you want to wake up to on the pillow beside yours for the rest of your life,” and I knew that was true.  We were married on January 20, 1973.

What do you feel has made your marriage last this long?  We were married in our church when he was 19 and I was 20.  We both have a true love of the Lord and we have based our home on His Word.  If you have God first, all your other priorities fall into place as they should.  We waited until we were sure of our love and started a family.  One month short of six years after our marriage, our first baby girl was born, and two and a half years later, our second baby girl was born.  Our daughters are now 29 and 31.  After our first was born, we knew neither of us could give them up – even for a weekend or a couple of weeks in the summer – and we found such fun and joy in our girls.  We just felt like our love was complete.  I’m certainly not saying there weren’t rough spells in our marriage OR in raising our girls, but we knew any rough spots had to be prayed about, talked out, agreed upon and straightened out.  Concerning raising our girls, we had to stand together on all decisions concerning them.  Children are, by nature, self-centered, and they will play you against each other to get their way.  Although you love your children more than life itself, they need discipline to make it in this world.

What advice would you give to young marrieds or troubled marrieds?  Date for a good while before considering marriage.  Prospective mates may be on their best behavior when they are trying to win you over, but you need to see both sides of them.   The first year of marriage is usually a “honeymoon” year.  The second year we were married, we hadn’t learned to talk about what was bothering us yet – notice I said TALK about, not SCREAM at each other in anger.  John slammed a lot of doors that year, and I cut my hair when I was mad (both childlike behavior, because we WERE still children.)  My advice:  Always put God first, attend and be involved in church together; pray about your problems, then talk to each other about them without accusation.  For example, don’t say, “You just go head and do things without asking what I want because you think you’re so much smarter than me, your way must be best!!”  That puts the blame on him like a slap in the face, especially if he was trying to handle something he thought you had been struggling with so you wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.  Try a more gentle approach like, “I think you were trying to help, but just going ahead and making decisions without me make me feel like you think I’m not smart enough to make decisions.  From now on let’s talk things out.”   Always try to be loving to each other.  Never just say a word in anger when it pops into your head.  Oh, and by the way, if it’s true love, it grows everyday.

Thank you so much, Mom, for sharing with us today!  I am so thankful to have such loving and caring parents/role models.  Here’s to another 39 years!