On November 11th, I celebrated 13 years of marriage with my amazing husband. If you dont know my story, Ben and I got married right out of highschool. Yes, we are that highschool sweetheart couple you always hear about.
We were 19 & 20 when we got married. So there was a lot of growth that needed to happen fast to make this marriage healthy from the start . We also chose to not have the typical 20’s experience, going off to live on campus for 4 years, then going into the work force.
Instead, less than seven months after getting married, we were buying a house. Plus, we were already working full time jobs before we even got married. Since there were so few role models that we could mimic to build healthy habits. We chose to learn by trail and error, plus psychology books on how to effectively communicate.
We had to learn how to not have passive aggressive conversations. But instead follow the rule of saying something nice or nothing at all. How to be clear as possible on what we want and where we are willing to bend. Plus communicate were we are feeling supported and where you are not. All the while, juggling full time college and work schedules with our marriage.
Over the years we have developed 4 key pillars that have kept our relationship strong. These skills are what I use to communicate with my friends, coworkers and customers too . Like with everything else I teach, its timeless work.
