30 Years of Love, Honor and Cherish

In love and naïve, we stood at the altar March 19, 1983 and promised to love, honor and cherish each other.  At 20 and 21½ years old, we had no idea where those promises would lead us, only that we were committed to being together.  On Tuesday, we’ll pause to celebrate and reminisce over some of the highs and lows those promises carried us through these last thirty years.  Then on Wednesday, we’ll head into the next thirty, with the same promises, still in love, albeit a little older and wiser.    

Steve and I moved straight from our parent’s homes to our home together.  Some would say that not having that individual time of being on our own wasn’t good, but for us, it worked.  We learned early and fast how to be flexible with each other and laid the groundwork ~ in compromise and laughter. It’s been the foundation of our relationship and how we’ve approached everything, from our finances to our social life to parenting.   

We’ve been blessed - there’s been a lot of joy and laughter.  I mean lots of laughter.  Steve’s penchant for puns and dry sense of humor has carried us far.  Of course it also helps to be married to your best friend, someone you like as well as love and the one who knows you better than anyone else in the world. 

The first three decades flew by in a heartbeat. We learned what it was to be married, established our household, and became parents, settled into our careers and our community.  We lost both sets of parents and became empty nesters for a time.  On the strength of the good times, a strong foundation of teamwork, and yes, at times just sheer luck, we made it to the other side of some brutally dark times as well.  There’s nothing like coming out of a dark place to find the other standing there, realizing they helped you through it and are waiting with open arms. 

Steve supported my desire to be a stay at home mom and homemaker for the first two decades of our marriage and my lifelong quest to be a writer.  I’ve supported his career choices, his involvement in EMS and firefighting, his devotion to community service and his commitment to being a Mason.  We’ve had fun projects, successful and questionable ventures and more mystery dates than I can remember. Above all else, we’ve been truly blessed to have our son Abram, the maker of The Morgan Three, along with us on the journey for the past 24 years.    

It’s been said that a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.  I believe you “fall” in love once, by chance.  Staying in love is a purposeful choice. It’s work through years filled with highs and lows supported by honesty, humor and commitment.   It’s a purposeful choice to remember and practice the vows to love, honor and cherish …

It’s good to pause now and again to take a look at the whole of your life in relation to the day to day living.  Thirty years seem a good marker for that.  I don’t know what March 19, 2043 has in store for us but I do see us working our way there, through the inevitable highs and lows with love, laughter and promises.