We’ll admit it. We’re embarrassed, but as we were preparing our 4th anniversary post for Instagram, we found ourselves typing “love and marriage quotes” into Google. Coming up with captions for your social media profiles every day is just so hard! #FIRSTWORLDPROBLEMS, we know.
As we were reading through quotes upon quotes from everyone from Ghandi and Maya Angelou to Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon, we began reading them aloud and diving further into them, and some deep discussion and reflection ensued on the little loveseat in our office. We talked for what feels like hours about our four years of marriage and the past 11 years of being together. We reflected on all we’ve been through – the good, the bad, the ugly. The days that were so easy to love each other the way we are supposed to, and the days where it’s harder. How we loved, what we’ve lost, how we’ve grown, and how thankful we are to have a partner to help navigate life’s twists and turns.
This Instagram caption cop out turned into something amazing. So, in an attempt to preserve these memories and celebrate four years of marriage, here are our four favorite quotes on marriage and what they mean to us.
1. “To be fully seen by somebody and be loved anyhow – this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Goodness, this is so true. We have seen each other at our very worst. We’ve seen anger and deceit in each other. We’ve seen messiness and loss of control. We’ve seen guilt and shame and sadness. And we love each other anyway. We may even argue that we love each other more because of it. Having someone see the worst in you and love you anyway is quite miraculous, and it leaves us with such a sense of gratitude and security that we can only thank God for.
2. “I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.” – Nicholas Sparks
We live in the suburbs. We live a modest life and live below our means. Neither one of us will discover a cure for an incurable disease or make any strides toward world peace. In the scheme of the 7 billion people on this planet, we are ordinary. We are common. But a successful marriage, to us, is something we will always strive for. At the end of this life, the love we share is something we’ll back on with pride, accomplishment, and contentment. No matter life’s successes or failures, we’ve loved another deeply, and that is extraordinary.
3. “People are weird. When we find someone with weirdness that is compatible with ours, we team up and call it love.” – Dr. Seuss
Ok, so this quote isn’t very romantic. You probably won’t find this one on the inside of a Hallmark card any time soon. But when we read this one aloud, we both chuckled and said “YESSS! That’s so true.” There are things we do and say inside the four walls of the Gay household that we’d never, ever, EVER repeat. Because it’s that weird. We’re just strange people. We have our own personal language that sounds a little bit like a mixture of Swedish and what you sound like after you have oral surgery. We refer to each other as “Shmurney” (long story!). We are obsessed with cats. We make up songs about said cats. Our closest friends know we’re a couple of looney toons, and that’s okay! Because we’ve found someone who just gets it, and we’re thankful that we’re able to be ourselves with each other. In the words of Dr. Seuss, we have indeed found a weirdness compatible to our own, and we are so lucky!
5. “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” – Robert Heinlein
Now this is a good one. As humans, we are innately selfish. We’re taught to look out for number one, and as much as we’d like to deny it, we all think of our own happiness first. This is not a paragraph about how we aren’t selfish people. Believe us, we are. But, we both can say with 100% certainty, as many married couples can, that if we knew the other was truly unhappy, we couldn’t carry on with our own. And when you really think about the gravity of that statement, it is so humbling.
6. “We don’t just get to grow old together. We get to grow up together. And that’s the real adventure.” – Unknown
We’ve known each other since Jamie was 12 years old, and we’ve dated since she was 16. We find such beauty in love stories like that, because we know that the odds are stacked against couples who meet so young. There’s so many circumstances that will impact the relationship and so many opportunities for failure. And when a couple makes it through, and still chooses each other in the end, that’s something so amazing.
We’ve been through high school drama, proms, college, first jobs, career changes, adulthood, the loss of parents, living on our own for the first time, and then into marriage, buying our first home, starting a business, etc. We’ve truly gone from child to adult together, and we’ve gotten to watch the other figure it out along the way. And through it all, the changes and the growth, we ended up together. We think that’s incredible, and as the quote states, such an adventure!
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We know that four years isn’t that long. We know it’s far from a lifetime, and we are so far from perfect. But, we’re dedicated to cultivating and celebrating marriage through the years, and today, on our anniversary, we’re taking the time to do just that! Cheers to four years!!
To catch up on previous anniversaries, check out posts from past years:
Cheers to Two Years: What We’d Tell Ourselves on Our Wedding Day
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