nothing worth having comes easy.

It's often said that nothing worth having comes easy. Sure, we've all heard this a time or two, or three... Before Clete and I were ever married, I knew having a good marriage would take hard work. As I knew this before being a wife, and even have known the work it takes in the 4 years we've been married, I never realized how much harder it gets when you throw a child in to the mix. For the first almost 3 years, it was just the two of us. We could do whatever, whenever we pleased. Then, along came our little nugget! 

I never understood before how couples could be married for many years, and then once their children are grown they split up. How can you be married for 20+ years and then just let that go? I get it now though, it happens because once children come into the picture it's so easy to get caught up in the routine. If you constantly just go through the motions of everyday life and don't make time for your marriage then it will suffer. 

I'll be honest, I'm guilty of sometimes not making enough time for my husband. You might think to yourself, "make time for your husband?" but once you have a child it'll make sense to you if it doesn't already. Being a parent can often times be exhausting. Even though our children are our biggest blessings, they're also a lot of work. Especially a 14 month old who's in to everything. After a full day at the office and an evening of being mama, sleep sounds better than sex. I'm just being honest here.

As we celebrate our 4th anniversary this upcoming week, I look back and see that this past year of our marriage has been the most difficult. It hasn't been bad, it's just had challenges simply because we've had to adjust to having a little one in the house and figuring out how to make time to nurture our marriage. Though it's been difficult to figure it all out, this past year we've grown and learned more about us than any other year. We've learned that it is amazing what good communication and a little time together after the baby goes to bed can do for our relationship. It can be as simple as sitting on the couch and watching a tv show together. We've still got a lot to learn, but we've already agreed we don't want to be those people that don't even know each other anymore after the kids are grown. May we always remember that we vowed to take this journey together. We want our marriage to thrive for as long as we both are living, so we will put in the work it takes to have that. It won't always be easy, but as they say nothing worth having comes easy.