Oh boy! I don’t know why I hopped on this train but we are taking things in a different direction today. I wanted to talk about Dustin and I’s relationship and our marriage. Disclaimer: I am not a therapist, a physcologist, or a marriage counselor! I just wanted to share with you guys my story and how we got to where we are today because it has to go along with a lot of mindset and shifting towards your goals. As many of you may know our story, I got pregnant at 19 and thought my life was over; I really had thought that I failed at life. Now a little back story, I live in Utah.
Utah is based in a LDS culture which I was born and raised in with the end goal ultimately being a temple marriage. When I got pregnant I was told that I was not worthy of a reception and that having sex before marraige was a sin next to murder. It was not a good experience in my life at all. Growing up, I had been raised with the mindset of the temple being where you get married and that did not happen for me.
Now yes, that happened because of choices that were made on both sides but, the first several years of our marriage were rough to say the least. I blamed Dustin for the ways our lives had gone. We were both still trying to figure out who we were and with a baby on the way! Let me tell you, things did not quickly improve just because we had a baby. When she finally came our marriage was not suddenly fixed and happy. For a while I had begun to blame Kenna, my oldest, for the direction my life had gone. There were so many rough years.
One of my biggest goals was to provide a different upbringing for my kids than I had. My life wasn’t all that bad but, it certainly wasn’t skittles and rainbows either. Breaking abusive cycles, both mentally and physically, hit me hard in highschool and from that moment on I knew that I wanted to break it. I loved going to visit my friends and watching how their parents treated each other; those things are what I tried to bring back into my relationships. The one thing that I did hold onto from my parents was that I did not want to get a divorce. I have nothing against it and I have no problems with taking a step away to find that happiness for myself. I am not afraid of that but, during the early years of our marriage, I stayed more because I was afraid of being out on my own. Looking back I feel like that is one decision that I made that worked in our favor.
Now, Dustin and I did not get married because we had a baby, however, it did bump our time frame up. Did I really understand how hard marriage was going to be at 19 with a baby? No! But we were able to do that. The statistic that I learned in high school (yes, high school!!) that I held onto for the beginning years of our marriage was that most marriages fail after seven years. In my head I remember thinking, “Oh, we just have to make it to seven years.” Somehow, magically I thought that everything would be fixed on that seven year mark. I don’t know what I was thinking!
I won’t say that there was not talk about divorce on several occasions, but neither of us was willing to make that jump in our relationship. Granted our marriage wasn’t going terrible. We had our first baby, bought our first house, and our marriage did improve before that seven year mark. I strongly believe that if I had not held onto that one statistic for so long that I would have begun to work on myself earlier, I think that our marriage would have taken a much different turn much sooner than it did.
Since then, we have both made a lot of changes. One of the best changes that we ever made for ourselves was moving away from the place where we grew up. I grew up in a small town where everyone knew your business! Growing up in LDS culture with eyes looking towards you all the time, I felt a certain standard that had to be reached. Sometimes I forgot that just being a good person is okay!
Getting away from the town and the people that we grew up with was the best thing that could have happened to us. At the time, we knew that moving was going to be the thing that would make or break us. It was not as good as it is now, but it wasn’t awful. We were getting along, things were getting easier, and we were finding our groove. I am not going to lie, it was pretty tough at first. But, after getting away from family and figuring out who we were as individuals and where we wanted to go helped us out a lot. I feel that that was an amazing process, distancing ourselves from our family, figuring out who we were as a couple and as a family.
Shortly after moving to Southern Utah I got a life coach, pulled my life together, and now we are here! We are building a life that we want to live! Do I ever think that we will be done working on ourselves? No. Of course there have been growing pains, running a business and now another one together, but we are figuring this out one baby step at a time!
Just one piece of marriage advice from one married woman to another, let go of the ideas that you have about marriage! Now, remember I am not a licensed professional, just some advice I have from years of experience. There’s lots of work that needs to be done for yourself and figuring out a life together as well. It is going to be a bumpy road. Do not hang on to that seven year mark! If you are not happy, figure it out now and fix it!
First off, life is too short to live unhappy. Second, work on yourself! Unless you are in an abusive relationship; if that’s the case, then get out. Find your own happiness outside of the marriage as well. I feel like doing so makes you a better person, makes you a better mom, and makes you more calm. So just do anything! Go out to dinner with your girlfriends! Book a hotel room for yourself! Go to a fitness class! Go do whatever you want to do! Stop finding excuses not to do it. Just one hour a week can make you a better mom, a better wife, and a better person. I lost myself in being a mom for a very long time and it took a while to get back to who I was. Make sure you are taking the time to do things for yourself. I promise you it will make all of the difference!
