Lucky 13

This week has been a very significant week in my life.  This past Monday, Tamara and I celebrated 13 years of marriage.  I celebrated by taking Griffin to his end-of-season basketball party, and Tamara celebrated by fixing dinner for Gage and catching up on some laundry.  Things definitely change when you have kids around the house.

Regardless of our celebratory methods, we’re both happy to be together.  In my estimation, it doesn’t seem like it’s been 13 years.  Maybe six or seven, I don’t know.  I guess it’s true that time flies when you’re having fun.  I love my wife more now than I did when we first got married, and I look forward to the years to come.  Things are a little hectic right now, but I know that they will even out, or at least change, as time goes.

And not only did we celebrate our 13^th this week, but my parents are celebrating their 50^th today.  That’s quite a milestone!  Even though they wouldn’t let us throw them a party (in fact, I think they left town on vacation to make sure we couldn’t), I’m still very proud of them and think they deserve the recognition of it.  Far too many marriages end in divorce nowadays, and we need all the good examples we can get. 

In my Sunday School class, the other week, one of my students asked me if planning anniversary celebrations got any easier as time went by.  It was a good opportunity to lay down some wisdom and experience, and in that spirit, I’d like to do the same for the rest of this blog.  I shall call it,

Argument Techniques I Have Learned From Being Married:

Not everyone argues in the same way.  Figuring out and accepting how your partner argues will get you a long way toward restoring harmony.

The woman always has the last word in any argument.  Anything a man says after the last word is the start of a new argument.

Don’t go to bed angry.  Stay up and fight!

My wife’s opinion on a given subject may change many times, but not the fact that she’s right.

Disagreements become much easier to work through when husband and wife clearly understand that they are on the same side.

But the absolute best advice I can give on the subject of arguing comes in the form of a little poem by Ogden Nash:

Secret of a Happy Marriage

To keep your marriage brimming,
with love in the wedding cup,
whenever you're wrong, admit it;
whenever you're right, shut up.