What a Prince

I never remember any dates. I have to look up my families birthdays and even have to take a few minutes to remember my children's which I sometimes have to double check. I am not very good at history for that reason. However my anniversary is especially hard because we set so many dates before we finally eloped (as much as you can at the temple we scheduled the next possible date) on March 23, 2002. Well of course I did not remember and I should have WOW 5 years seems like a mile stone moment. I know those of you who have been married longer may think "wait for ten or even twenty." but for me I am so happy to have made it this far. There are so many times I can remember thinking that I could throw in the towel and just "cut my losses" before we had kids. And then after I had my first child it turned into having to "stick it out." And then of course Two more kids later we had to work it out.
I am so glad that when things got rough my hubby and I got together to work it out. I would have missed the best part of our life had I given up on him.

See I will take you back twenty years to a day that will always be a big moment in my marriage.

Before I met my husband he was a boy who was in love with his mother. A woman who in her own life was very confused. Stumbling her way through motherhood making mistakes like we all do but, judging herself much harder than anyone ever should. Trying to live up to the expectations she put upon herself and then later blamed on the church. Of course as children do my husband loved her through her faults. He did not notice that dinner was repeated week after week. Didn't care that she could not but him the best new clothes. He knew she came to his ballgames and played with him on the living room floor. What he did and still does care about is the moment she said to him "I do not want you to be with me right now" Then she turned with her bags in hand and left him behind. You see she needed to work out her own life. A goal that now is so common among young mothers. People who do not have to live in my marriage. Or in there children's.

For the first few years I know my husband was doing almost everything he could to make me say those words. Boy did we fight we could scream, and we could yell, I could cry and he could fall asleep with out ever really talking about anything at all. And until he told me about the day his mom left I did not fully understand why he did not trust any women. Once I figured that out I decided to fight for him. To change his view and to show him what a real woman should be. Not that it has been easy but now I make him sit at the table with me and work things out. I try to leave him notes in all sorts of places and I get up with him in the mornings to see him off to work. And like in Jhonny Lingo I now have a ten cow husband.
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Three years later I woke up to find two bags of doughnuts on the table and a note that simply said "Happy anniversary to a woman who I know is not my mother" When he came home that night we had planned to have a pretty candlelight dinner by ourselves after the kids went to bed. And of course the baby was screaming and the two older ones were laughing and screaming in their beds. But across the chaos I looked into the eyes of the man I promised to stick out eternity with and saw A man who I know will cherish me for that whole time. There is no other gift you can give to a spouse then a love that lasts an lifetime and will go on even longer after that. I know he loves me for me. He looks at me at my worst and helps me find my way back to the best. I pull him out of the holes he digs himself into. So even if FIVE years does not seem like much I am so great full the are over and and looking forward to the next gazillions even more so that I did the day I walked out of the temple holding his hand.