Hi Vicki.

Thanks for the comment. I wish I could say yes, but not hardly. Our communication has improved dramatically over the 10 years, with the most growth taking place the months before the wedding (we learned a lot about each other during the wedding planning process — whew). Before marriage, we had the option to walk away from arguments and avoid tough decisions. But when we got married walking away stopped being an option. We committed to the never ending process of learning how to effectively communicate with one another; through tragedy, mental health battles, career stressors, and all of the things that no one other than your partner really wants to deal with. Everyone looks forward to the wedding day, but no one prepares new couples for the reality that they will be learning how to coexist with their partner until the end of time. Also the trust changed, which lead to more open and honest dialogue. Now that we are legally bound, we have to trust each other in a way that we did not have to consider as single individuals. More on this in a future post.

Honestly, I didn’t expect our relationship to change. It makes sense that the relationship changed because we’ve changed a lot as individuals in the now 12 years we’ve been together. When the responsibility changed from me, to now having to think of we, our communication and decision making processes changed too.