What marriage means. 5 lessons after 5 years.

My wife and I just celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary and I wanted to share some of the most important things we’ve learned & what marriage means to us. Not only from the 5 years of marriage, but the 7 years we’ve been together

1. Love is not automatic in a marriage.

Love is not automatic, or a default setting in the relationship.

What marriage does not mean is that you once loved each other and that will go on automatically.

It needs to be consciously created every single day.

The best things in life require effort, and relationships are no exception.

You have to work at it every single day to create a fulfilling relationship.

What marriage means to us is, working to understand and nurture each other as well as creating love in the relationship.

2. It’s not your job to make them happy.

Your job is not to make the other happy, or even be a source of their happiness. It is up to them to create happiness for themselves.

What your job is, is to create & cultivate experiences that you can both enjoy and share together.

This is something I’ve said from day 1 that we both agreed on and serves us very well.

3. You don’t have to agree on everything in a marriage.

You don’t have to agree on everything, have the same beliefs, or even have the same tastes and interests.

Far more important are your shared values. i.e., both striving to grow spiritually, personally and being the source of strength when the other has days or moments when they do not feel strong.

Niyati and I have different spiritual beliefs, but our values are totally in alignment.

4. Being the best version of yourself.

You need to create the best version of yourself.

Why would a partner ever seek something better when you are the best there is to offer?

This isn’t an ego thing and should never be interpreted as such.

Your job is to be & create the best version of yourself and when you do that, you won’t even need to ‘trust’ your partner.

The choice to continue to stay with your partner, will be something they continue to do… through all the ups and downs.

This requires a very deep spiritual understanding not everyone will get, but it is the absolute truth.

5. Don’t make each other number 1.

Our life doesn’t revolve around each other. What marriage means to us is having a higher purpose that we involve the other in.

We’ve created a space where we can be totally ourselves in a very large compartment of our lives, but it isn’t all there is and the other isn’t the most important aspect.

The most important aspect to us both, is our personal connection to the Divine, and that takes precedence over everything.

We encourage each other & remind each other of that regularly.

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What marriage means to us

What marriage means to us is all of the above and so much more.

There are Hollywood definitions of love, and then there are real relationships.

The reality is that relationships are incredibly hard work and effort daily. It’s never a given from day to day, and like sculpting a toned body, it’s going to require a great amount of consistent work.

We don’t pretend or want to convey that our relationship is flawless.

Far from it.

But we work very hard at it, and there’s rarely been an occasion where we’ve gone to bed feeling anger or animosity towards the other.

We try to laugh every single day and we know that is just is just the beginning and we have barely begun to scratch the surface in our journey together.

Have you thought about what marriage means to you? Let me know in the comments below… I’d love to hear from your own personal experience.