26 Years of Marriage...

There are days when it feels like we were just two young people trying to figure life out together, and other days where it feels like we’ve lived a thousand different lives side by side already. This month, my husband and I celebrate 26 years of marriage, and while I know people love a polished anniversary post filled with perfect photos and romantic one-liners, that has never really been our style.

Because real marriage is rarely polished.

Real marriage is built in the middle of ordinary life. It’s built through career changes, stress, exhaustion, health scares, financial pressure, shifting dreams, aging bodies, changing priorities, and learning over and over again that love is far more about commitment than chemistry. Chemistry gets all the attention in the beginning, but commitment is what carries people through decades.

People often ask couples who have been together a long time what their secret is, and I always laugh because I think everyone hopes there’s a shortcut. Some magic formula. Some relationship hack that suddenly makes marriage effortless.

There isn’t.

There are just two imperfect people deciding, repeatedly, that the relationship matters more than being right all the time.

Now don’t get me wrong — after 26 years, we absolutely still annoy each other. I’m fairly certain there are still ongoing debates in our house that started sometime around 2004. There are still moments where one of us says, “Are you seriously doing it that way?” and the other person immediately gets defensive before realizing maybe this conversation is not actually worth ruining an entire evening over.

Growth, apparently, takes time.

One of the biggest lessons marriage has taught me is that love changes shape over the years. In the beginning, love often feels exciting and consuming. Everything is new. Everything feels effortless. You can spend hours talking, stay up too late together, and somehow still function the next day on almost no sleep because adrenaline and attraction are doing most of the heavy lifting.

But long-term love becomes quieter. Deeper. Less performative.

It becomes the person who knows exactly how you take your coffee. The person who can tell from the way you walked into the room that something is wrong before you even say a word. The person who has seen every version of you — the ambitious version, the exhausted version, the grieving version, the overwhelmed version, the healing version — and stayed anyway.

That kind of love is different.

And honestly, I think it’s better.

One thing I know for sure is that humor has saved us more times than romance ever has. I genuinely believe couples who laugh together survive difficult seasons better. Life gets heavy sometimes. There are seasons that stretch people thin emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially. If you lose the ability to laugh together in those moments, everything starts to feel harder than it needs to be.

Some of our best moments together have happened during seasons that were objectively not fun at all. Somehow, in the middle of stress or chaos or complete exhaustion, one of us says something ridiculous and suddenly we’re both laughing so hard we can’t breathe. That ability to find lightness matters more than people realize.

Marriage needs humor because life is already serious enough.

It also needs kindness. And not the performative kind people show online. Real kindness. The kind that shows up behind closed doors when nobody else is watching. The kind that chooses patience during stressful moments. The kind that resists sarcasm when frustration would be easier. The kind that remembers your spouse is not your enemy even when you’re frustrated with each other.

I think one of the most dangerous things in long-term relationships is contempt. Not conflict. Conflict is normal. Two people can love each other deeply and still disagree about a hundred different things. But contempt slowly erodes connection. Constant criticism. Eye rolling. Belittling. Keeping score. Those things quietly damage relationships over time.

Kindness protects connection.

And connection matters because life changes people. The person I married 26 years ago is not the same person standing beside me today. Honestly, thank God for that. We’ve both grown up. We’ve both changed. Life has humbled us in certain ways and strengthened us in others. We’ve learned things about ourselves we never would have understood in our twenties.

One of the healthiest things you can do in marriage is allow each other room to evolve.

Too many people expect marriage to preserve people exactly as they were in the beginning. But healthy relationships are supposed to stretch people. Challenge people. Refine people. A strong marriage isn’t built by refusing to change. It’s built by learning how to grow together without losing respect for each other in the process.

I also think we need to stop putting impossible pressure on marriage to fulfill every emotional need we have. Your spouse cannot be your entire world. They are your partner, not your whole identity. Healthy relationships leave room for individuality, friendships, personal growth, and separate interests. In fact, I think couples become stronger when they stop trying to force sameness and start appreciating difference.

My husband and I are not identical people. We think differently, react differently, and process life differently. Earlier in marriage, those differences sometimes felt frustrating. Now I see them as balance. We each bring things to the relationship the other person needs.

That perspective changes everything.

Another thing nobody tells you about long marriages is that not every season feels romantic. Some seasons simply feel faithful. There are years where love looks less like date nights and more like consistency. Showing up. Staying connected. Choosing the relationship even when life feels overwhelming.

And I think people panic too quickly when relationships stop feeling exciting all the time.

But stability is not failure.

Comfort is not failure.

Ordinary life is not failure.

Some of the strongest marriages are built in the most unremarkable moments. Quiet mornings. Shared routines. Running errands together. Sitting on the same couch at the end of a long day saying absolutely nothing because you’re both tired but still grateful the other person is there.

There’s something beautiful about building that kind of history together.

After 26 years, what I appreciate most is not perfection. It’s safety. It’s trust. It’s knowing there is someone who has walked beside me through every version of life and continues to choose this relationship despite all the imperfections that come with being human.

Marriage is not a fairy tale. At least not real marriage.

It’s a practice.

A thousand ordinary decisions repeated over decades.

Some days it looks romantic. Some days it looks messy. Some days it looks like laughter. Some days it looks like patience. Some days it simply looks like staying.

But maybe that’s the real beauty of it.

Not perfection. Not performance. Not curated moments for social media.

Just two people continuing to build a life together one ordinary day at a time.



And honestly, after 26 years, the fact that we still genuinely enjoy each other’s company feels like one of the greatest accomplishments of all.