Seems weird to wish everyone a happy quarantine/lockdown, but these are the times we live in right now! It seems everyone is affected one way or another from the COVID-19 global pandemic. Some people are affected financially with job loss or revenue. Some people are affected with loss of loved ones or even just the loss of a social life. Some people are missing out on important milestones and celebrated events like weddings and even prom.

This post contains affiliate links to Amazon. Which means Freshly Married can make a small commission on items you buy through these links. People have been asking how I am doing since I have been absent from posting much on the Freshly Married website and social media. And to answer everyone, I am doing GREAT! Some days are anxiety-ridden and November to mid-December we’re pretty tiring ( #sleepregression ). But we have been just enjoying life altogether regardless.

**This post contains affiliate links. This means, if you make a purchase through any of these links, we’ll receive a small portion of your purchase at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Freshly Married! Have you ever thought about creativity in your relationship? Hearing that might have some of you thinking, “Uh-oh… I’m not artsy or crafty whatsoever! How is this going to apply to me?

Now that the secret is out that I’m pregnant with twins I can finally share my words of the year because it has everything to do with them. :) I say WORDS because I think it’s important to have a goal in mind for you as an individual, and then a goal in mind for your marriage. However you like to do your goals, whether by choosing a specific word to inspire you, a vision board, or simply writing down the goal in a sentence, make sure you are considering how you can strengthen your marriage.

When I originally wrote this draft blog post about 4 years ago, I mentioned that our way of doing things with our finances has been very successful for us, and that we didn’t have issues between us due to finances… WELL, then we bought a house, and cars, and started investing in retirement, got fun medical bills, doing our own side businesses, etc. So our finances got a little more complex, and therefore the responsibilities of managing them got a little bit more intense.

Every birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and wedding anniversary, I find myself googling thoughtful gift ideas that I can buy or make for my spouse. The same thing happens when I want to get a “just because” gift for him, or create a special date night for us. Add these up and we’ve got AT LEAST 5 times throughout the year searching for gift ideas. Over the past few years, I have been keeping track of some awesome finds that interest me or my spouse, and I think most spouses would love too.

Most people don’t know the underlying reason for Freshly Married being here. It’s because relationship education is important! And yet so many people have either never heard of it before, are intimidated by it, scared of it, or assume it means you have relationship problems you need help with. WELL NEWSFLASH, WE ALL HAVE PROBLEMS! haha. But really. Because I believe passionately that relationship education is a helpful tool for all relationships, not just marriage, I want to explain what relationship education is while addressing some misunderstandings so that you can feel more comfortable with seeking help.

If you’ve been following along this past year, every week I’ve been writing a blog post each week specifically about a joy that I have found in my marriage that week. Well, that project is now done with, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been as consistent with a project like this before, especially one that is every week for a whole year! You can read here why I started this project in the first place.

The Joy I found in my marriage this week is simply little surprises that mean so much! This joy kind of spans over the past two weeks when my husband gifted me with a massage! I really needed it and they are just my weakness. My body needs it. My mind needs it. So this was a gift I was eager to use. The other “gift” was a computer monitor for my office.

Recently, someone in church said something that completely resonated with me in so many ways, and I instantly started writing a bunch of thoughts on it that I had. I want to share those with you! She talked about how we sometimes look at people as obstacles, and how doing so gives us such a negative attitude and perspective on our situations with them. Hearing that really hit me and I think it’s because of the context it was in–relating obstacles to people, especially the people whom we have close relationships with.

I’ve written a lot about date nights: giving ideas, stressing how important it is, but that it doesn’t have to be epic. Well since “date night” isn’t as simple as you think, I’ve got more to say about it, of course! I’ve been watching cooking shows lately, and have heard the term “elevate” be used a lot. It’s described as like adding an extra element or level to your dish that gives it a kick to stand out from the typical version of that dish.

Introduction: Amberly of A Prioritized Marriage, is someone I absolutely look up to when it comes to marriage! I instantly fell in love with her message and admired the educated expertise she brings to her platform. She is someone I want you to hear from, so I asked Amberly a few questions to answer for you! She gives great responses that not only demonstrate her important message of making the relationship with your spouse a priority, but she shares specific actions on how to do that.

This is the beauty of marriage right here. I remember being single not having a consistent person to rely on. Yes, I had loving family and friends but they also have their own lives and their own problems. In marriage, though, your spouse becomes your number one priority and so you get to experience that loving feeling of being taken care of. There are days where I feel bad that my husband has to deal with my bad days whether I’m either emotionally down in the dumps, or just not feeling well physically.

One day I was flipping through an article on long-lasting celebrity couples, and each couple said something that has helped them be successful in their marriage. Some of the reasons were good, but this one by actor Bryan Cranston (from TV shows Malcolm in the Middle, and Breaking Bad) and his wife of 27 years stuck out to me. Whether or not couples therapy is successful for them (it seems like it is since they are still married), this statement is so powerful!

To say there are so many stereotypes and stigmas out there associated with therapists and therapy is an understatement. Therapists are often portrayed in movies and TV shows as jokes, and I’m not sure why, because seeking help for your mental and emotional state of mind is not a casual or comical thing! It’s also just as important to keep yourself emotionally healthy as it is to keep yourself physically healthy!

I am sharing my experiences because I believe that the more positively we talk about therapy, the less stigma attached to it, and the more likely people are to seek help and actually get the help they need. I have seen a therapist at two different times in my life, and each time was for emotionally difficult situations. I ask for your sensitivity as I get very vulnerable here! (Just to preface this, I’ll refer to both counseling and therapy as one sometimes, just so it’s more simple to read, but the two professions are slightly different.

I love playing with sparklers in the summer! They are a fun burst of energy and warmth, and have totally “sparked” a comparison for me to marriage! Some couples at various points in their marriage, lose those fun, romantic sparks. Sadly, some of these couples wait around for the sparks to come back again on their own, which rarely happens. I think they wait around because it seems like a daunting task, right?

First of all, Happy New Year!!! We are on a Caribbean cruise ringing in the new year, so it’s a little belated from me! That’s also the reason why we just barely did our annual dinner date night where we share and discuss our goals for the year together. We typically do it on New Year’s Eve but we felt like saving it until we got home from our trip. Especially because this fun stuff was going on!

Since this is our 3rd attempt at Christmas cards, I kinda feel like I got it right. Maybe! I didn’t feel like I could put together a newsletter super quickly even though I already had our template from last year. Something inside me suggested making it somewhat more simple this year. But I like to give more than just the picture of us with a small Christmas phrase with our names on it.

Think back to the last time you had to drive somewhere for hours. Your foot is tired from driving so much and you just want to give it some rest. When you’re on a long stretch of road with few cars around or potential hazards, you want to turn on cruise control, right? This mechanism with a car has its pros: it can save gas and it keeps your driving consistent.

If you want ^^this^^ you gotta be willing to work for it [sc name=“soundcloud” id=“282494134” ] When people say that marriage is “hard work” (which it is!), it’s important to explain what kind of work that means so newlyweds don’t think exhaustion and stress is all they are getting into! I think it’s hard work because it’s a commitment that you’ve never encountered before. Our friends mean so much to all of us.

When life gets busy, it’s easy to just keep going and going, working at that to-do list. We let the little greetings we give to each other be enough. But you can’t go DAYS without truly talking with your spouse. Each of you NEEDS that. Whatever time of day it is that you are reading this, take that important pause in your busy schedule to ask your spouse how they are doing, in their day, in their week, or even in their current personal struggle.

[sc name=“soundcloud” id=“282060301” ] This question is so important to the #freshlymarried perspective! I believe that our daily positive actions add up to create a strong marriage, and asking ourselves this question can help us do that. For those of you wondering what the word “fresh” has to do with my overall marriage message, you can read more here :) But using a quick example: when restaurants have items specifically made fresh that day and not days earlier, that’s a restaurant you want to eat at, right?

[sc name=“soundcloud” id=“276708040” ] It’s not easy being a spouse to someone who suffers from a depression disorder or anxiety disorder. There’s much patience required and it might be harder to understand if you have never experienced it before. Some spouses go into marriage with someone who suffers from depression not knowing how much of a mental and physical toll it can also have on themselves. And sadly, many couples go into marriage thinking that because they are so in love with their soulmate, their depression is gone.

[sc name=“soundcloud” id=“276707574” ] I love this quote. This reflects what my husband has done for me and I feel nothing but overwhelming gratitude when I think about it. Spouses hold an amazing power to love you through your mistakes and weaknesses. They may be the only people close enough, and willing to understand those mistakes and weaknesses. It’s such a vulnerable thing, and for them to still stand by your side and come out loving you MORE is just amazing.

[sc name=“soundcloud” id=“276706899” ] It seems more people have been coming out and sharing that they suffer from depression and/or anxiety. Whether it’s just during postpartum or a life-long struggle, it’s not easy to battle, and not easy to share with everyone that you are among them. I’m grateful that more people are sharing this because it is not uncommon. We all experience hard and even traumatic things, and sometimes the explanation is just that the brain chemicals are imbalanced which causes the bouts of depression.

“The truth is, Rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection.” - brene brown There’s this amazing video depicting empathy by Brene Brown that changed my life when I watched it. She talks about the difference between empathy and sympathy, the mistakes we tend to make when attempting to give empathy, and what we should be doing instead. It’s super short, yet super powerful! The animation helps you understand well, too.

Watch the video, then proceed to the rest of the post below :) [sc name=“youtube” id=“BLpKabyYfds” ] Making your own marriage recipe So you have your ingredients list above, and now you need the directions to follow, but where do you find those directions to follow? 3 ways you find those directions: You study and learn through credible books, classes, and advice from others. You pull from your past relationship experiences of what worked and what didn’t work.

Everyone can feel loved differently because we each have different love languages we speak. Sometimes your love needs to be shown in a certain way. However, it requires your time no matter how you show it! Be willing to give up your time to do something special for your spouse, to say something special to them, or just plain be with them :) Give time to your spouse today!

The smoke detectors in our house have slowly been going off over the past few months, needing a replacement battery. And boy was that fun in the beginning :) I remember the first one that starting chirping during the day while it was just me at home, and I couldn’t replace the battery because I wasn’t tall enough to reach it, haha. So I had to wait until Trevor got home because he could reach it.

PROGRESSION! It’s a word that guides every aspect of my life. Especially lately! At some points progress can be slow-moving (one of those points being marriage!) but I know the day will come for you to see the rewards of your efforts and endurance, and you’ll feel strong. But it takes your active participation to get there. Put in the work to have the marriage you want or you won’t get it.

The use of techniques are found in our everyday activities; at your job, in your hobbies, cleaning your house, cooking, or driving a car. Each one of these requires the use of a skill or ability that you have learned that has helped you perform better in these various activities. Guess what? This idea can also be applied to your personal roles, such as being a spouse. It’s naive to think that knowing how to be married should come naturally.

For those of you who don’t know John Gottman, he’s basically the number one guy in understanding couples and marriages. He’s also really fun to listen to! I respect him for his many theories in marriage, but this one is one of my favs because it’s fairly easy to remember AND it makes a daily impact on your marriage! It’s called the 5 to 1 ratio for healthier marriages. How it works For every 1 negative thing we do in our relationship, it should be accompanied by 5 positive things**.

“…There would be far less of divorce, much less of infidelity, much less of anger and rancor and quarreling. There would be more of forgiveness, more of love, more of peace, more of happiness.” Looking for the good in your spouse daily — YES that’s DEFINITELY a smart technique to use in marriage! Look for the good, look for the positive, and look for the reasons why you fell in love with them in the first place.

A reader asked what I would suggest as ways to prioritize your spouse, and I decided to put all that information in a post because my reply is too big for a comment box! haha. So here’s my reply to my previous post: “Prioritizing My Spouse.” The idea of growing apart happens gradually over time. When you think about it, there will always be sudden situations that come up where you do need to be there for your kids over your spouse, but I think the problem starts when this is happening frequently.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people take marriage for granted or discount its importance. I’m not just saying that because I’m a marriage guru, or because I don’t understand what it’s like to have children of my own yet! From conversations I have had with people lately, they have made comments that appear to me as devaluing a family that only consists of husband and wife. It’s as if they think a married couple simply on their own isn’t good enough, or isn’t a “family” compared to a married couple with children.

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY FAMILY BEGINS WITH MARRIAGE In the previous post connected to this, I discussed how it’s becoming more normal to put less importance on marriage and more importance on kids. I think that this normalized mindset has given people this idea that a family only consisting of a husband and wife isn’t good enough compared to a family that has a husband, wife, and kids. NEWSFLASH: Marriage is the foundation of a family, and the most important foundation we will ever build!

I hope you all enjoy your own trip down #memory lane with this #freshfridays thought :)

Arguments, fights, tiffs, quarrels, disagreements, misunderstandings, whatever you call them, are bound to happen here and there in marriage. If a couple says they have never even disagreed before, they are lying to you and themselves! haha. Whether it’s a large or small matter, and consistent or rare. Trevor and I have our tiffs just like everybody else. We have moments when our minds are not in sync with each other.

You all know what we already did for our #anniversary to keep it fresh - romantic vacay to Hawaii! But what is your answer to the question? :) If you recently celebrated your anniversary than this is your early start to thinking about next year’s celebrations! It’s already got me thinking!

If you’ve been following along from the beginning, you’ll remember that I wrote about the following married milestones: being married for three weeks, and then three months. So naturally, I felt like doing a milestone post on being married for THREE YEARS! That’s such a small number, but I believe every year is an accomplishment! And we’ve experienced so much together in this short time, so it gets me excited about what we’ll experience at our 30-year mark!

Little steps make up the whole staircase anyways, right? It’s the little things we do today that count. It’s the little things we do on our marriage that make it long-lasting!

This is a common catchphrase in religions, even though it might not be a guarantee. While I believe praying is a powerful tool in marriage, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee a couple won’t get divorced. However, it does pull a large weight when it comes to feeling high marital quality. I came across a recent article not too long ago from the Institute of Family Studies about how influential religion is in a couple’s marital satisfaction.

*This post contains affiliate links. Our time is very valuable as married couples, individuals, and parents. Weekends seem to be dispersed between your own events and obligations, family events, or just plain staying home on a Saturday night relaxing! If you got kids, throw in their games and activities, too. So when it comes to date night, it’s rare for some of us to find time for double dates, let alone our own dates!

As a society, especially women, we tend to get caught up in other’s love stories. The obvious ways we do this are through movies and novels, right? Writers make up these passionate love stories that (most of the time) are unlikely to happen, with the most convenient circumstances. When these stories are played out in movies, of course, we finally get to see it all played out visually so everything is played up.

We are all full of wisdom whether we have been married five days or five decades! Sometimes being a teacher helps us learn something ourselves. What would your advice be?

This week I asked how couples get their exercise - do they work out together or individually, and why. The reason I asked is because this is something my husband and I have been trying to figure out for a while now! I’ve seen many couples do workouts together, or go on the same diets. I think it’s cool to have it be something you can do together because you get healthy while spending time together, you can encourage each other, and it can be convenient to eat the same meals.

Substitute a few words with “marriage” and you now have a quote that inspires you to be more than just married :) “In the end, it’s not the years in your marriage that count, it’s the life in your marriage.”

To the couples who haven’t gone on a date in awhile: GO ON A DATE! I know I say this a lot, and I don’t want to come off as annoying, judge-y or insensitive when I write this post. Life can be tough and in those tough times, we tend to put this incredibly important relationship of ours on the back-burner. It also happens when life is busy. For whatever the reason, these situations start to take precedence over something that is so essential to a relationship.

MIX IT UP. Some routines are happily comfortable and don’t need changing. But if you start to feel yourself wanting more out of your time together then you know a change would be good. You have to be willing to try something new, though, or you’ll get the same old results! Doesn’t have to be big but enough to continue progressing and being freshly married!

To the older couple staring at us kissing in line, stop rolling your eyes about it. To the people sick of listening to proposal stories, stop rolling your eyes about it. To the people who joke about my husband and I being prom dates because we sometimes match his tie and my dress for church, stop rolling your eyes about it. Why am I saying this? Because people tend to get annoyed of young love and it bugs me.

I was married in a Latter-Day Saint temple, where we believe allows your marriage to be eternal. However, simply having my marriage ceremony within my religion doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed to have a happy and healthy marriage! Believing you’ll have a forever marriage is different from actually creating one. Principles to follow I firmly know that the principles taught in my Latter-Day Saint faith and many other faiths directly coincide with principles you should follow for a strong and happy marriage.

I love this. Great advice for life but even better advice for marriage. If your marriage is in a “rut” you don’t have to settle for that stage. You both have the power to make the changes that will put you in a stage you feel happy with. Whether it’s making sacrifices, behavioral changes, or getting more outside help, you can make it happen. Think about that as you answer the #freshfridays question: “What change can you make TODAY to freshen up your marriage?

“…That is good news because no matter how flat your relationship may be at present, if you keep adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a mighty pyramid will begin to grow.” This weekend I watched Latter-Day Saint General Conference and heard some great spiritual messages! I also heard great messages about marriage, too! I especially found one particular talk I wanted to share that was so “nailed on the head” and relatable to all marriages, not just religious ones.

The #freshfridays encouraging thought today! It’s easy to wish you could start over, start fresh, but stop wishing because what’s done is done! The only thing you can do is utilize the new day you were given, and make a change!

The past few months I have found out more and more people that I knew or am still friends with have gotten divorced. The shocked part of me thinks: “I swear they all just got married yesterday!” And then the realistic part of me remembers that high school was 7 years ago and a lot can happen whether people got married right out of high school or more recently. Because I’m in this same grouping, it gives me mixed feelings, realizing that divorce truly is a possibility, but that I’m glad I have the strong marriage I have.

There’s no time like the present! There are so many things you can do RIGHT NOW as such a small step towards keeping your marriage fresh! My fav is the power of a text message and it’s so easy to do! I encourage you to pause what you are doing for 30 seconds and send a quick loving or encouraging text to your spouse!

In our short three years (almost) being married, Trevor and I have done really well about trying to be financially independent from our families. It’s something that had to be done in stages because tackling health insurance, car insurance, and a phone bill all at once is not wise! Health insurance is a headache on its own, am I right?! But slowly we made goals of what responsibilities we needed to take on and when to do it.

This is a great #freshfridays question just before you all head out to date night! Do something special! Serve them in unexpected ways! Maybe anticipate their needs by staying in and giving much needed head massages! There are so many possibilities to doing something to liven up your relationship. SO DO IT!

Choose to have learning experiences rather than fights, rather than ruts, rather than mistakes. Each of these IS an experience that teaches us something we didn’t know before. Choose to let that new information improve your relationship. For More see the blog post, “The Inevitable Storms in Marriage.”

Letters of Forgiveness Imagine that every morning after you got dressed you put a stuffed envelope in your back pocket. You consciously open the drawer to your nightstand and grab a worn letter inside an envelope, fold it in half, and put it inside the back pocket of your jeans. That might seem like a small little difference to your normal routine, because I don’t know anyone who does this, haha.

With it being the beginning of the month, this is the perfect time to ask yourself this #freshfridays question! Maybe it’s making an extra effort for date nights, maybe it’s doing something unexpected for them, or maybe it’s keeping a more positive atmosphere in your conversations. The best thing about these questions is that the possibilities of what you can do are ENDLESS!

I know it can be very hard to let little things go, or to let big things go. Overcoming your variety of feelings, is not easy. Forgiveness is not easy! Forgetting is not easy. I know that it’s easier to sing it than to do it (sorry not sorry if the song got stuck in your head lol) but once you do let it go, you also have let go of resentment and can move forward with a clearer heart and mind.

This #freshfridays question gives you SEVEN DAYS to find a good time to do something for your spouse or for your marriage in general! I’m going to give my husband more head/scalp massages this week because he has really liked those lately. I’ve noticed it helps him to de-stress from work and even go to sleep more easily. :) Think about what you could do and commit to do it!

Last year I wrote a series of posts on how social media can get the best of us and how it can affect our marriages. I now want to discuss another aspect of social media that can affect our marriages. THINK ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL CONNECTIONS I didn’t think there was a problem having tons of friends when I first started facebook back in high school. It was neat to be able to connect, but then I realized how it can make me feel envious or inadequate when I spend a lot of time on it and am involved in other people’s lives so much.

I’ve been down lately about some things and I’m realizing that I feel a little better when I do little things for my husband. He has been patient and encouraging, so this weekend I’m going to try forgetting about myself and do more things for him :) What will you do this weekend to keep your marriage fresh?

My husband and I have both mentioned in posts how much we enjoy giving and receiving love notes from each other. I really think there’s an awesome power that comes with love notes. Having a physical copy of how your spouse feels about you is something you can refer to in years to come, which makes it more special. Trevor and I used to write more to each other while we were dating, and I think it’s because we lived an hour away from each other.

In a presentation about having a more connected marriage, one of my UVU professors shared this cute story about something he does in his marriage and I thought it was inspiring to share! The Dot above the Door Handle One night when he came home from work, his wife mentioned to him that she felt like she wasn’t being noticed, like the things she did in her day weren’t being appreciated as much.

And by good things, I don’t just mean that it opens the opportunity for sex! haha. I think that by ending your night with a kiss sets you up for good feelings before you go to sleep. Good feelings or bad feelings can be the difference between staying up all night or having a beautiful sleep! Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that if you don’t kiss your spouse goodnight that you are a terrible spouse, or that you’ll have bad feelings before you fall asleep!

My #freshfridays question is to help those of us who haven’t planned out their Valentine’s Day yet ;) (me being one of them!) Since the #monthoflove is next weekend, I want to encourage you to do something a little different. Whether it’s spent inside or out, mixing it up helps freshen your romance! What are your plans??

*You will get the most out of this post if you read Love Languages Part 1: Understanding* We’re talking about this best-selling book, “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman! (affiliate link) So hopefully you have taken the assessments to know what your spouse’s love languages are, as well as your own. And hopefully you have discussed it with your spouse as well. (If you haven’t taken it yet, no worries, still important to know all this!

*This post contains affiliate links. I am a huge believer in love languages! Gary Chapman is most well-known for this idea in his book: “The Five Love Languages.” There are other interpretations when it comes to understanding how people feel loved but this seems to hit it on the head for me! I honestly could say I have a testimony on how important this concept is to marriages because I utilize it repeatedly in my marriage and in other relationships!

**This post contains affiliate links. This means, if you make a purchase through any of these links, we’ll receive a small portion of your purchase at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Freshly Married! For the past four or five months on our dates we have been trying to better focus our conversations on ourselves, rather than work, school, and other business. Trevor would think of questions or look up some to ask each other and it was fun.

Story time When we were living in an apartment still, there was a new family that moved in below us; a wife, husband, and a few kids. Since they moved in, almost every day we heard them yelling. The parents would yell at each other, the parents yelled at the kids, and the kids yelled at the parents. I absolutely hated it; I cringed every time. Yes, I cringed because it is annoying, but mainly because it shows that they are were not loving each other and instead were hurting each other.

HUG MORE. KISS MORE. HUG MORE. KISS MORE. ETC. ETC.

[sc name=“soundcloud” id=“281723250” ] So many people right now are thinking about how they can better themselves for the new year. I am doing that right now, too! But one area people tend to forget to make a resolution for is in their relationships. Do I need to mention how awesome and important that is to do in your MARRIAGE?! I have to admit that I didn’t do that before beginning a serious relationship with Trevor.

When I watch TV shows that portray a husband and wife relationship, I get annoyed sometimes with how they act towards each other. Examples of this: Wives nagging their husbands and saying they don’t do anything for them ever. Husbands complaining and saying comments like, “this is torture” when helping their wife plan a party or something only she is really interested in doing. They say sarcastic things under their breath at each other.

I’m so glad we happened to get a blooper photo of me actually picking my husband up because it worked perfectly for this ;) Mondays can be hard, huh? It’s beginning another week of the daily grind, wishing you could go back to Friday :) What helps us get by on these days where we are lagging? Sometimes it’s a funny video on youtube. Other times it’s a diet coke or brownie.

We all know that being kind can change someone’s entire day around, or maybe someone’s act of kindness has changed YOUR entire day. Kindness is so powerful, if you didn’t know that already! Throughout my marriage I’ve definitely been shown and taught how powerful it can be. When Trevor and I first experienced tiffs with each other, our process of being upset and also working through it was something new to me.

I love love love this thought because it’s a great reminder to me that it takes an effort to make things great, and even when it’s achieved, it has to be maintained! It also attacks that old saying: “The grass is greener on the other side,” and I have a few ways I like to relate this to marriage… It’s easy to look at all the other marriages around you and wish your relationship could be as wonderful as there’s.

I know we are all used to seeing celebrity couples splitting up, but gosh has anybody else noticed it’s been like one or two every week?! This happens all the time, sadly so I didn’t expect myself to post on this. However, I saw a headline that got me thinking about it more. The headline said, “First Ben and Jennifer, now Blake and Miranda? Is anyone else losing faith in marriage, too?

Soooo I used to be apart of “Bachelor nation” like 6 years ago. It was entertaining to watch and then I got annoyed at how unrealistic it all was to actual healthy relationships so I stopped watching it…. Until this season. It was all my classmates would talk about before class and then I read this awesome article on it and decided to give it a try again. Who doesn’t like judging other people’s relationships?

I have been thinking about the little milestones in marriage a lot lately. The anniversaries and growing families are great – super awesome milestones! But I think it’s nice to honor those little things we do in marriage… The “little victories” if you will! The little victory I had when I wrote this was making a meal I have never made before, and slam dunkin’ the “HONEY THIS TASTES SO GOOD!

Marriage has gone down in history this week with the legalization of same-sex marriages throughout the nation. The past few days I’ve been thinking about two things: 1) We are all human and we all have rights, despite our sexual orientation or religious beliefs. 2) How this is an opportune moment for us to increase our appreciation for marriage in general (traditional or non-traditional). Recognizing the responsibilities Marriage is a big deal to me.

This week my Associate in Science degree finally came in the mail! I practically earned it last summer, and then had to wait to apply for it in the fall, and then it got sent to the wrong address, haha. So I have had these proud feelings for 9 months, but finally got the paperwork to show for it ;) Believe it or not, my college career began in Fall 2009… Over the past six years, I made important life decisions that took me all over Utah, and to three different universities… haha.

Found this quote the other day and I really liked it. Yeah it’s cheesy and cutesy, as well as simple and thought-provoking. Bittersweet decisions Throughout the past years I’ve come to know what’s most important in life. (Maybe it’s the selflessness I had to learn going into marriage, or maybe it’s just maturity? haha) It’s a bittersweet answer for me when I ask myself questions about the things I’m currently doing in my life.

*This post contains affiliate links. On our first date, Trevor and I started talking about some things we like to do, and we found most of them we had in common (of course!) Since he had recently come home from serving an Latter-Day Saint mission, I started suggesting some of the movies he should watch and music to listen to that came out while he was gone. It started as that, and then somehow it turned into things that we were possibly going to do together… :) So being the list people that we are, Trevor pulled out his phone and created a google doc, listing these things to do.

I used to be one of those people that thought you should do anything and everything for your kids - that they should be the priority. It’s portrayed in movies of parents willing to do anything for their kids. Overtime this philosophy has changed for me, especially since finding Trevor. You can pause before continuing, and read this awesome article by a mom: “Why my husband will always come before my kids.

This is the last post in a series of three posts on this subject. It would be beneficial to read part 1 and part 2 before or after reading this post :) How social media has affected my marriage Trevor and I differ on our level of social interaction. I have a stronger need for it than he does, and it’s OK :)Being different in this way set a good example to me, that I’m grateful for.

This is part 2 of 3. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, reading it would probably be to your benefit. :) All the world’s a stage I think each of us are on a stage. We give a public presentation of ourselves to an audience – the people walking by us on the streets, our co-workers, friends, family, and our virtual friends on social media. When we go out on stage, we pick the parts of ourselves that we want people to see.

From about September to December, I really struggled emotionally with social media. I fell into some common pitfalls of comparing my life to other people’s lives, questioning how “real” people were, and spending more time being involved in it than I should have (though I wouldn’t say I was addicted). These things were lowering my self-worth, and making me feel ungrateful. I snapped out of this phase and realized some important things that have made me and my marriage happier.

Wanna know something funny? We’ve established a grocery budget for every month since we’ve been married and I don’t think I’ve ever truly been able to stay under it, EVER! haha. I even feel like I’m fairly frugal in my money-saving strategies. I look through the coupons we get in the mail to see if there’s a deal on something we actually use or eat, I’ll take advantage of good sales going on and stock up in bulk (one of the big suggestions to saving money on groceries), and I’ll avoid getting items sometimes that I think are too expensive that week.

I attended a women’s conference with my mom a few weeks ago and I was inspired by one of the speakers who talked about “loving at arms-length.” It was actually Dawn Armstrong, the mother of the missionary from the movie, “Meet the Mormons.” She talked about how she has a lot of love for so many people; sometimes people who randomly come along. Her love for people grew ten fold when she stopped loving at arms-length, and instead pulled them in tight and gave them a hug.

I’m suuuuuper excited to announce that I am now a PREP trained facilitator! PREP stands for Preventative Relationship Enhancement Program. This accredited program is taught internationally to anyone wanting to strengthen their marital relationship! I have been training so I can teach this curricula to large audiences in the community, and I am happy to announce my first one! I will be partnered with three co-facilitators to teach a slightly condensed version of the program.

I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was to have family pictures up until now. I always thought people made too big of a deal over getting family portraits taken every year, and switching the pictures out in their home every time. While I love the idea of that, it’s not about having formal family photos to show off. To be honest, Trevor and I prefer the silly candid iPhone pictures we take, even in selfie form!

One of my favorite things about getting married, was that I received another awesome family in addition to my own awesome family :) There are so many great things that come with having another set of parents to count on, another set of siblings to have fun with, and of course, don’t forget those nieces and nephews! One of the difficulties, however, in gaining another family, is having to split your time between them for holidays and other events.

Click the play button to LISTEN to this blog post! [sc name=“soundcloud” id=“273872657” ] Back in college I had to do an assignment relating marriage and relationships to something. It could be an object or an action, we just had to explain why. I found a lot of similarities between hiking and marriage so I wrote all those down here for you! :) It’s a crazy, fun, stressful, scary, beautiful adventure together.

Did any other couples gain weight their first months of year of marriage? Or was it just us? hahaha. We always joke to people that getting married must do something to your metabolism. Maybe we just didn’t start off our marriage eating healthy in the first place. I mean, we took this whole first tier of our wedding cake with us on our honeymoon to eat! haha I guess some of our eating habits changed when we got married vs.

So remember how I am working on a degree in Family Studies, studying all relationships that come with that, and becoming an expert on how to have a good marriage? Yeah, well just because I’m gaining knowledge, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to apply to my own marriage ;) On a daily basis I find myself learning something neat about normal family functioning, and how to handle relationships. And of course, when I’m learning all of it, I think of the various relationships I have that apply to that idea, and it helps me understand and remember the concept better.

When you think about a typical honeymoon (or look back on your own honeymoon), it’s a pretty great experience :) This picture is of us on our honeymoon to Park City; a.k.a Our best vacation ever! Honeymoons are full of fun, low-stress, and are fairly worry-free because the happiness of being together outweighs everything. That happiness continues on after the vacation is over. Hence, the “honeymoon phase” phrase, haha. It was such a simple time.

I’ve totally been absent for a long time, I know. Sorry. I definitely have my reasons though. I love blogging and writing about aspects of married life that can be useful for people, but I think it’s important to take a step back from writing, and just enjoy those aspects of married life, instead. I’ve been so busy the past few months. Though I enjoy being busy for the most part, I start to hate it when it is consistent and doesn’t come with a nice break.

As you know, we moved into our first home three weeks ago. We are enjoying it a lot so far :) It’s been great to come home to our own place with a lot more space! (I’m cool because I rhymed.) There’s DEFINITELY some upgrades from an old apartment to a new home, that we’ve enjoyed. Like how my stove cooks chicken, and how my oven seems to bake things better!

*This post contains affiliate links. A research team under John Gottman, a well-known expert in couples research, found that, “the success or failure of a marriage depends not on whether there is conflict, but on how conflict is handled when it does occur (Walsh, 2012).” Because of that, Gottman has addressed the mistakes we make while in the middle of marital conflict, in hopes that we can correct our mistakes and live happier marriages.

In my marriage and relationship skills class that I took over the summer, my professor was making fun of his cousin who just got married and started a blog about marriage, as if his cousin was an expert on it. Apparently they would write in a way that the things they were suggesting were wrong. With my professor being an actual expert on marriage in being a couples therapist, I could see why he would get annoyed of people like that.

A few weeks ago, I heard a stupid song on the radio. Well, goodness, aren’t most of the songs on the radio kind of stupid? At least the ones on the cheesy pop stations, are. (I really hate most of what is played on the radio and am baffled that our society actually enjoys them so much that they become a top 10 favorite, but that is an argument for some other time, haha.

Before I got married, I would hear things about how friendships change when a friend gets married. I heard that the girls nights disappear, and the friends stop calling each other. I heard that single friends think their married friend is too consumed in their husband to care about them, or that there’s no relating to each other anymore. I’ve also heard that the single friend feels like their married friend is always trying to set them, and it’s annoying to them.

You’ve probably noticed a decrease in posts the past few weeks. (I’m sorry for that!) I love our blog, and I love writing posts, but I’ve just had my hands busy with school. Yep! After being out of the academic loop for two years, I am back in the game! It’s been a slight adjustment with getting back into my nerdy, studious habits, but it’s been more of an adjustment with how face-paced summer blocks are.

On Thursday, I was shamefully watching the daytime talk show, “The View” (I know, I stooped that low, don’t judge me), and I was saddened by some of the comments that were being said about marriage to their guest co-host, Candace Cameron Bure (she played DJ from “Full House”). She came out with a recent book, so they discussed some of her ideals on marriage that were written in that book.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way our blog is viewed. I wonder how our experiences are responded to. I wonder if we’re too bold in some of our marriage ideals. And sometimes I wonder if our life comes off as this airy fantasy of what marriage really is like. After I have written something, I think back at the reasons we established this blog and ask myself if the particular post can be beneficial to our readers.

Pornography is one of the biggest threats to marriages and families. Sex is the number 1 topic searched on the Internet (NCPCE Online, “Current Statistics,” Internet, http://www.nationalcoalition.org/stat.html). The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reported the biggest factors in divorce cases: – 68% of the divorces involved one party meeting a new lover over the Internet. – 56% involved one party having “an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.” These statistics are disgusting and sad.

We love it when we come across marriage being talked about in the news. This article is something that was posted in the Deseret Newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah, the other day, and I just wanted to share it. Though I’m not sure that I agree with titling these “marriage commandments,” I do think it’s a great suggestion to compare them to the ten commandments we have been taught about through the gospel.

Do you and your significant other have different likes and dislikes? Yeah, we do too. We have had some since the beginning, but are starting to know a lot more, lately! We are so glad that we have those differences, because they provide a little variety in our relationship (haha). And if we were the exact same person, we might get bored after awhile. I think some of those differences have started to get to us a little more, recently.

You don’t hear about many newlywed couples who have food storage, but we are now one of those couples. We’ve been planning since before we got married, to have a three-month supply of food storage, and we just reached that goal this week. No, this isn’t because we worry that a zombie apocalypse will occur. It’s because we fear the unknown. I know many of you think that the topic of food storage is one that older people are involved in.

In our first three months together, I learned: Routines are comfortably nice. To take a deep breath and be patient. You can gain weight quickly as a newlywed! (Yikes!)

We just bought a new iron two weeks ago. I was excited to play wifey with it, and iron things for my husband, just like the movies show wives and moms doing. (some of you might chuckle at that). So while Trevor went to run errands, I thought I would try it out on his dress shirts, and have them wrinkle-free for his Sunday-dress. You need to know two things before you judge me.