Gratitude Gems: To Wed or Not To Wed

Welcome to Gratitude Gems, where I show a little appreciation for the good things in my life!

Last week an unmarried coworker asked me why I got married.  In retrospect I should have expected this considering I had just retorted that a supposed 40% divorce rate makes you wonder why anyone gets married these days.  I’ve been thinking more and more about my rather short answer to her question ever since.  Why did I choose to get married?  Here are my top 6 reasons:

1. I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him.  Cliché maybe, but the truth is that I always knew that once I found an awesome individual who felt the same, I was going to marry him.

2. We see both sides of the coin.  I come from divorce, and Tavis’ parents are still together so we felt we had a good understanding of how marriage could really go either way.

3. We talked about marriage a lot.  Six months into our dating relationship, my brother got married, so Tavis was stuck conversing about marriages and weddings right from the start.  Eight years later we darn well knew what we were getting into in terms of each others’ views.

4. We agree on our deal-breakers.  Abuse and infidelity are non-negotiables for us both, and we agreed to approach any other problem with our best effort in order to keep the marriage happy and healthy.

5. We want the same things.  The house, the kids, the white-picket fence.  Okay maybe not the fence necessarily, but all our other long-term life plans lined up.

6. He supports me to be the best version of myself.  He pushes me to do my best in work and play, he encourages me to cultivate my individual and our joint interests, and we are a team in all things.

I’m not sure where my coworker read that specific statistic, then again I don’t really care.  People will get married whether they should or shouldn’t, regardless of statistics.  As for me, I married a great guy and I’m looking forward to celebrating our 3rd anniversary in a couple of weeks!

S