Why I Chose You

Marriages go through changes and phases over time. It is a fact that, as we age, our priorities change. Newlyweds, my elders told me, need that first year of marriage to be child-free. "You need time to get to know each other," they opined, "before bringing a child into this world together." Nowadays, people have the freedom of living together without being married to "get to know each other". The missing ingredient in this situation is commitment. To actually commit to a relationship means you are willing to WORK for it. That's such a simple word for a host of emotions. It takes TWO to make a marriage work well. You must BOTH be willing to work at finding ways to communicate your wants, needs, dreams, and goals to each other. Two minds and hearts working together, with love at the root of it, can reach goals easily, but poor communication is a major cause of divorce. I only recently realized that "communication" does NOT mean going about trying to change someone else's ways, but accepting that person as they are, and making the most of their strong points, within the marriage. A happily-married friend once told me that she and her hubby never argued; she bitched and he listened! She had to have been joking, as she usually does, as she has a wonderful marriage, to a husband with a career, a career of her own, and two sons who have finished college and started their own families.
Humor, I have begun to realize, seems to be one of the ingredients that keeps a relationship solid.
My current (#3) husband has made the grade with me. His sense of humor works well with my ability to keep my emotions under wraps until I explode into a sobbing heap. He suddenly becomes dead-serious, listening to me for a couple of minutes, then makes me laugh over the cats' antics. This keeps me from "crying myself sick", but, at the same time, validates my feelings as important. It works for ME. I would be interested in knowing how many couples think humor is important to a marriage and why.

You are so right. Humor, the ability to laugh together -- not at someone or at each other -- but sharing the same joke, the same fun way of looking at something. Laughing together really bonds a husband and wife together. In fact, my brother-in-law first noticed the woman who later became his wife because she was laughing at all the same jokes he was.