Sobremesa Stories

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5 Lessons Learned In 5 Years of Dating And Marriage (An Anniversary Post)

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Five years ago this past weekend (Thanksgiving 2010, to be exact), I hopped on a plane to visit a boy from Kansas City who I’d met a few months before while making milkshakes in a Young Life camp snack bar.  Lots of late-night conversations, some awkward almost-hand-holding, and one lakeside, starlit first kiss later, we started dating (you can read the rest of our love story here).

It’s crazy to look back on these five years and see all the ways God has shaped us, delighted us, broken us, and used our relationship to draw us deeper into Him and into each other.  Dating and marrying Jordan is the best thing I’ve done and I wouldn’t trade our story for the world, but it definitely hasn’t been easy.  I write pretty frequently about marriage in this space because while I think it’s beautiful and wonderful, my own experience (and the stories of so many women I know) have shown me over and over again that it’s also really freaking hard.

5 Lessons Learned In Five Years Of Dating And Marriage

Learning to love another person deeply and wholly forces us to let go of our own selfishness, our own desires, and our own plans, and that is never easy.  But there’s so much joy to be found in the letting go, so much sweetness in the surrender that comes when we give ourselves to another person without fear.

In honor of my sweet husband and the five years we’ve spent together, today I’m sharing five lessons that our time together has taught me.  I’ve written about a lot of these things at length, so pop over and check out those posts if your marriage or relationship is as imperfect and glorious as ours!

Five Lessons Learned In Five Years Of Dating And Marriage

1) Expectations are made to be broken.

We both walked into marriage with so many expectations of what it would be like and should be like (I especially struggled with this).  Like I shared about in this post, I expected my husband to be perfect, myself to be perfect, and everything about our marriage to be wonderful and glorious and loving at any giving moment.  After falling on our faces many, many times, we’re learning that messing up is just part of the process, that our brokenness is natural and apologies and forgiveness in the moment can lead to deep healing and growth.  Sure, it’s important to strive to always make our marriages more loving and intimate, but sometimes we just need to give ourselves some grace when we aren’t perfect and the you-know-what hits the fan.

Proposal Sobremesa Stories

You can read more about our proposal here!

2) Physical intimacy is wonderful, confusing, and really, really complicated.

Can I get an amen on this one, guys? No matter what you believe about sex or the choices you’ve made or are making, can we be real and say that sometimes this thing that’s supposed to be wonderful is actually kind of confusing? That sometimes our expectations (see above) and our longings get in the way and we turn this beautiful thing into something hurtful, shameful, or sad?  Physical intimacy is beautiful and joyful and such a sweet expression of love, but it isn’t always easy.  These last five years have taught me how important it is to always be honest about that fact (in the context of private conversations with hubby and with people we love and trust, of course).  I wrote a lot about this in one of my most widely-shared posts (see that post here), but I hope you’ll give yourselves some grace in this area if you struggle with it too.

Graduation-Picture

3) Personality differences are a good thing.

Over these last five years, I’ve realized that I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make Jordan spend his time like me, talk like me, process like me, and live his entire life like me.  Whether it’s trying to change his hobbies (see this post for details on that failed venture) or trying to reconcile our opposite personality types (see this post for details on how we live in our introvert-extrovert marriage), many of our marriage’s biggest conflicts have come when I’ve tried to change Jordan instead of loving him for who he is.  Marriage is a sweet, transformative thing that makes us into more humble, Christ-like people, but it is not our job to change each other.  The ways we’re different are beautiful, challenging, and make our marriage a whole lot more interesting!

Boulder Selfie

4) If we play together, we’ll stay together.

It took me a lot longer to figure this one out than it did Jordan.  Jordan is playful and spontaneous by nature while I am more of a planner who likes to know the schedule at least two weeks in advance and a deep thinker who likes to skip small talk and jump right to the deep stuff.  When I’m tempted to stay serious and deep all the time, Jordan reminds me that one of the most important things we can do for our marriage is PLAY together.  Whether it’s playing a board game, going on a walk with our puppy, playing tennis, or just giggling as we do a household task, those moments of silliness remind us that there’s more to us and more to our marriage than the hard conversations.  Play is just as essential for intimacy and communication as the hard conversations are, and I hope we never forget that (see more about how this connects to the one thing we do after every argument in this post).

Overcoming Busyness - A Family Picture

5) Relationships have seasons and that is a-okay.

Over these past five years, our relationship has seen many different seasons.  We’ve wrestled with so many different things as we’ve transitioned from being long-distance, getting engaged, and living in the same city, to getting married and sharing our lives, our home, our finances, and so much more together.  Some seasons have been exciting, sweet, and full of joy and others have been hard and full of challenging conversations.  Sometimes those seasons have been one and the same and the joyful moments are mixed in with the hard ones.  No matter what season we’re in, we try to remind ourselves over and over that God is weaving both the beautiful and the difficult moments into an intricate tapestry that we’ll one day see and enjoy.  For now, all we can do is trust Him, trust each other, and keep fighting the good fight for a marriage that lasts.

At one of our favorite local brunch places

We have learned so much over these last five years together and my heart has grown to love my silly, ornery, and wonderful husband more and more with each passing day.  Marriage is hard and beautiful and absolutely life-changing and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

If you are dating someone or married, what are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned over the years? 

In addition to the posts I mentioned above, here are a few of my favorite posts I’ve written about marriage!

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Comments

  3. Aww, congrats on 5 years together! We’re celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary this week. I know my husband would say what he’s learned in five years is that “marriage is easy”–he’s still utterly convinced of that fact, so I guess he just finds it easy to be married to me. I know most people 100% disagree with his views on marriage. What I’ve learned is that the novelty of getting to live in the same house doesn’t really wear off. It’s still the coolest thing ever.
    Rachel G recently posted…November Adventures (The Sad and The Happy)My Profile

  5. Love this, Lauren! Congrats on 5 years- that’s huge! Your relationship posts have been somewhat of a saving grace for me lately, and I cannot thank you enough for sharing your heart on the Internet so I can find a friend and some comfort when I need it lately!

  7. Beautiful post! 5 years together…wow congrats!!! I love this line: “Learning to love another person deeply and wholly forces us to let go of our own selfishness, our own desires, and our own plans, and that is never easy. But there’s so much joy to be found in the letting go, so much sweetness in the surrender that comes when we give ourselves to another person without fear.”

    Beautifully said! Relationships are NOT easy. Trevor and I are coming up on 3 years together. We have had the highest of highs and lowest of lows. I think a big part of a thriving relationship is never giving up when it’s tough, and forgiving. We went through a rough patch 2 years ago and we almost broke up. We got through it, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through, but it made us stronger.

    So happy for you two!!
    Chelsea recently posted…DIY Christmas CenterpieceMy Profile

    • Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Chelsea! 🙂 I completely agree with you. It’s so easy to get in one of those rough seasons and lose some hope but sticking it out through those times is what makes you stronger and helps you grow closer together. I’m so glad you guys were able to learn that lesson too! Thanks for reading!
      Lauren recently posted…Five on Friday: Christmas Decorating And Family FunMy Profile

  8. Beautiful post, Lauren! Congratulations on hitting the 5-year milestone. That’s such an awesome accomplishment. Dave and I will hit 5 years next year, and it’s crazy to think how quickly time has passed! I can agree with all of these pieces of advice. Marriage definitely has it’s ups and downs. It’s complicated and awesome.
    Erin @ Very Erin recently posted…6 Places to Buy Affordable Christmas DecorMy Profile

  14. Congrats on 5 years! 🙂 I love this post. My husband and I have been married for two years now and t’s been so much fun getting to know him better and sharing life’s experiences with him. We love being married, but it definitely has it’s challenges. It’s all part of the process though and I wouldn’t change a single thing 🙂

  16. What a beautifully written article! I love when you said that changing your husband was not your job. For years, I too, thought this was my responsibility. How freeing it was when I realized it is not. Thank you so much for sharing your insights!

    • You are SO not alone in that, Allie! It’s such a challenging thing to work through, especially when all those other crazy circumstances come up. I’m hoping to do the same thing when we have our little one in March and I know it will challenge me a whole lot. I hope you’ll share about your experience on your blog so I can learn from you too! 🙂
      Lauren recently posted…Five on Friday: Christmas Decorating And Family FunMy Profile

  20. I love this, Lauren. Sometimes I forget that relationships have seasons. It’s easy to look back at a particularly joyful and easy time in my marriage and wonder what we are doing wrong now. But hard times in marriage aren’t bad—especially when you are committed to sticking it out. I needed this reminder, today, friend. Thanks for sharing your heart with us. It’s so beautiful. 🙂
    Kelsey Ferguson recently posted…3 Organizations Empowering Women To Escape the Sex TradeMy Profile

  29. I feel in love with this post! Playing together is a reminder to me to not be so serious also. It can be hard when you just want to get to the point. I have to remind myself that we both do hobbies that we don’t like to just spend time together. I have been with my hubby going on seven years. We have been married for 1.5 of those. It is fun and exciting, but very challenging. Great post and lessons learned!
    Ashley recently posted…December CurrentlyMy Profile

  30. This is so good! When Damien and I started dating, and even later on as we were wed, one of the biggest things I had to work on was allowing myself to be vulnerable. I didn’t necessarily want to be seen as perfect and having it all together, but I was afraid that by showing my imperfections, my faults, my weaknesses, I all of a sudden wouldn’t be good enough and would end up being rejected. It’s been a long, tedious and challenging process learning how to let go and allow myself to be completely open and vulnerable with my husband, but the results have been oh so sweet and beautiful.

    And congratulations on five years 🙂
    Danielle recently posted…A Childhood MemoryMy Profile