My husband and I celebrated three years of marriage and more than eight years together last week. Much like our anniversary (Adam forgot and planned a rehearsal with his band, I stayed home with the intention of exercising and ate leftover ice cream cake instead), our engagement story is about as unromantic as you can get.

We were sitting in one of those terrible airport restaurants on our way home from a vacation in NYC and a friend’s wedding in Connecticut, when we started talking about our own marriage plans. We were in our mid-twenties and had been dating for a little over four years, living together for most of that time, too. It felt like we had a decision to make: to get married or not to get married.

The next summer, we got married.

Afterwards, we got the usual questions. How’s married life? Does it feel different? Of course there was the high that comes with hosting a party for all your closest friends and family, but our relationship was the same as it has always been. Side note: whether or not you plan to get married, I highly recommend hosting a party for all your closest friends and family at least once in your life. It’s awesome.

So why did we decide to get married? We aren’t religious. We weren’t under pressure from family or friends. Except…

Several years ago at a family party, someone introduced Adam to another guest as my “friend”. Granted she didn’t know us very well, but even the term “boyfriend” didn’t feel like an entirely accurate description of our relationship at that point. How is it that we use the same term to describe a three-month relationship and a three-year relationship? And don’t get me started on the term “partner”.

Part of our decision to marry, I think, was influenced by other people’s desire to define our relationship with labels that didn’t feel right to us. It feels good to call Adam my husband and to be able to instantly communicate, even to strangers, how important he is to me. And it was really nice to host a wedding, to spend a day celebrating our relationship and our commitment to each other in a really big way.

One of my favourite quotes about marriage comes from the movie The Kids Are Alright:

“It’s just two people slogging through the shit, year after year, getting older, changing — fucking marathon, okay?”

Completely unromantic, just like us 😉 It comes off as dark and maybe a little depressing, but I find it comforting somehow. Life is hard and we all have our ups and downs. Some days I’m a good partner and wife, and other days I’m not. Adam and I fight about all the usual stuff, but there is no one I would rather slog through the shit with. It is a marathon.

Sometimes in relationships (often in relationships?) we focus on what we’re missing instead of what we have. Adam’s messy. He can be forgetful. But he’s also incredibly caring. He’s a great father. He once described my workout outfit as sexy. He accepts my offers of a million dollars to wait on me hand and foot even though we both know I’m not good for it. We laugh together. Often.

Did we need to get married to have all that? Probably not, but I’m glad we did.

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