Marriage

Marriage........according to wikipedia it's a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. Sounds so formal right? The truth is marriage can mean many different thingss to many different people. Individuals even get married for different reasons, but here in the US the most common reason is of course love.
Love, that is the reason I wanted to get married, it took me some time to find the right man to spend the rest of my life with, but once I found him he was worth the wait. I know that I got lucky with Sean, that may sound corny to you, but believe me it's the truth.
In relationships past I had found myself changing who I was and even having differing opinions just because of the person I was with, I don't have to do that with Sean. He loves me for who I am and I don't have to change a thing about myself to be with him and that's so important. I've seen this happen to some of my friends and it really just breaks my heart why should we have to change who we are as a person just to find love, I honestly feel that if someone loves you you shouldn't have to change who you are as the relationship progresses.
Now love and acceptance is all good and fine but it takes more than that to make a marriage work. Couples have to decide what works for them and balance all the aspects of their lives. Comprimise is VERY important when it comes to a partnership. People of all ages can give you advice until they are blue in the face and sometimes it's good and sometimes it sounds insane, but at the end of the day it's what works best for you.
It has taken Sean & I a little longer than most newly married couples, but that was because he was gone just about our entire second year of marriage being a brave soldier! Once he returned home we were all in for some serious adjustment because we had all gotten used to doing our own thing. I would foget to tell him about plans we had made, and he would forget to tell me something important simply because for the previous year we really hadn't had to do that.
None of our close friends had really experienced this, and as a result they don't fully understand how hard it was not only to spend the time apart, but also to reconnect and live life together again. Sure they were sympathetic while Sean was gone and checked in with me to see how Lilly & I were holding up, but once he was home it was assumed that all was fine. I didn't talk about a lot of this to my friends because quite a few of them were going through their own things and my issues seemed pretty insignificant in comparision. Looking back maybe I should have, maybe now they would understand and not pass judgement on things they don't understand.
We spend time doing different things now than when before he left, Lilly's older now so we do different activities and with different people. I wish that the people who we don't see anymore or as much as we would like to could simply take a minute to see past the initial perception and grasp what is really going on because what you see isn't what you get and if you're not around you don't know all that is going on and all that has happened.
Presently Sean & I have re-adjusted to life as a married couple under the same roof. We each have our responsibilites and our jobs and it works out well. Even though Sean got laid off he still has a "job" he does his job hunting everyday and I still take care of all the fun stuff on the home front. Our life is a happy one and in the long run that is what matters.