On being married for 25 years

This month we are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe that all those years have passed.

We met via church and started together as friends with an immediate connection. I truly knew the moment we met that I would marry her just as clear I know the sun will rise each day. We could talk for hours and laugh for days. About a month or so after we met my wife went back home to the US and we kept in touch the old-fashioned way via letters and infrequent (and expensive) phone calls. This was before the web and email were not widely used. Sometimes this meant calls from payphones with stacks of quarters. Sometimes it was just a message left on an answering machine.

I decided to serve a volunteer two-year mission for my church. I was able to finagle things so that I could arrive in the US a few weeks early to spend time with my future wife and her family before going off for training and my service. We got to know each other better and I was able to muster the courage to tell her I loved her. This though was under the context of me going away for two years with extraordinarily little contact. We did not make any promises to each other, but I parted as the hopeful optimist I strive to be.

Although normally we would be expected only to keep in touch via mail, less than a year later things changed. I found out that I needed life-saving surgery. The primary killer for people with my rare disease was upon me. I remember sitting weeping as I took the news in, alongside my mission leaders. I explained that I had found love and that I did not want much for my life but only to see myself married to my best friend. Instead of mail, we were able to speak on the phone and tried to be hopeful.

I would not be writing this if the story ended there with my death. I was able to get help from one of the top facilities for my disease in the world, and one of the top surgeons. It was an exceedingly difficult time and recovery, but I made it. About a year or so later we were able to meet again and reconnect. We both knew that we should be married. In my religion, the commitment to marriage is meant to be for all time and not just until “death due you part”. It is a beautiful promise and we both took this seriously, even at our relatively young age.

The Salt Lake LDS Temple where we were married

We have grown closer as the years have passed. We try not to hold things back and instead try to openly communicate our problems, fears, and dreams. We pray together every day. We strive never to go to bed mad with each other. We promised each other early on that we would live together in a peaceful home. We have worked together to keep that promise.

Things have not always been easy. We have faced many challenges, but we have faced them together as a team. My work and health problem have been a heavy burden for me, but I have never been alone in facing those challenges. Until recently, my work had been seven days a week responsibility. I can say I was on call for twenty years straight.  I missed birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and so much rest. But we did this together. I remember one unplanned all-nighter where my wife slept on a couch at work as she wanted to be nearby in case I needed her.

Being chronically ill has been my biggest challenge. We knew from the start that my health would continue to decline as the years passed. There is the intellectual knowledge of that and then there is the reality. I said recently that I have had both the happiest and worst times in these twenty-five years. But even during the toughest of times, my wife has been there to lighten my load. During the worst night of my life, my wife was there racing me to the hospital as it would be faster than an ambulance. She was there shouting for help and there helping the medical team as they fought over what they could do to help me. In the morning I awoke to find her asleep in a chair next to me. This is just one of the countless examples of her being my advocate and keeping me safe.

A happy marriage isn’t always happy. That should not be your goal as it is not based on any obtainable reality. Our goal has been to find happiness when we can, to cherish our time together, and work to make the best life we can. Much of our happiness has been from helping others. By working as a team and growing together we have found what works for us.

My marriage has been my biggest accomplishment in life, and I am grateful beyond words that I have the partner that I do. She teaches me daily what it means to have unconditional love, a faithful heart, and a love of God.

I am the luckiest.