Not many of my friends are married or have any intention of doing so either. This is fine of course. Each to their own! But it does make talking about married life a bit difficult with others who have perhaps not been with their partners for very long.
Last week we celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. We have been together for almost ten years, a decade... wow.
I never imagined that I could live with someone for that long! But now I have and I plan to stay with my husband for many more years.
I think being married is different than just being in a relationship in so many ways. You really do share everything. Every aspect of your life is shared with this other person and that can take a while to get used to.
You have your goods times and your bad times, but you get through them together.
The priest who performed our wedding gave us some really good advice before we got married. He said "It's not his flaws or her flaws when you are married, but it is our flaws". He meant that you can no longer judge each other by his or her weaknesses or flaws because when you are married, you have to look at them as joint weaknesses or flaws. By doing this, you can deal with them as a couple instead of two people warring. I think that this advice has given us a different perspective on our relationship and helped with arguments too.
When people ask me if I am happily married, I can honestly say yes I am. Even though we fight a lot about the silliest things and can go to bed angry at each other (which is something my mum told me not to do!).
I can't imagine being with anyone else.