Hi, I’d love to hear from people who have been married for 10+ years.
What are the hardest experiences you’ve been through during your marriage? Have you been through life changing experiences that have either tested and/or strengthened your relationship?
What are the biggest challenges your marriage has come up against?
How do you find forgiveness in your marriage? I’m specifically referring to letting go of past hurt from a fight or conflict.
Thanks =)
Married 17 years this past October.
Hardest experience? Loss of my husband’s job and he was unemployed for 10 months. We went through all of our savings…we focused and worked together but it was hard!!
Challenges? Loss of three babies. Especially the loss at 22 weeks. I was all over the map in feelings and almost forgot that HE experienced the loss too…
Forgiveness? It’s hard, because you can say “I’m sorry” but if you do it again, are you really? And then you can’t just forget - when you get angry - it pops back up in your brain and it festers again. You then have to say “I am committed” and press on. You can express your hurt or even that “hey, this past issue is rising it’s ugly head, we need to talk about it.” and get it out in a way that doesn’t admonish them again for their past mistake or hurt.
Hope this helps!!
I typed up a whole thing and realized it was too much. We have been through a lot of hard things. Unfaithfulness, unemployment, an older child that my husband didn’t find out about until she was 12 (we had been together 8 years at that point I think). All of them are hard and trying, but all of them and working through them, have gotten us to today.
We got through all of those with counseling. The last time we focused on communication so we could really talk about our issues and concerns without it being a huge fight. I can say our relationship is much stronger than it ever has been. This is how we found forgiveness, by being able to communicate better, we can at least work through the issues.
My husband is currently unemployed, but he is working hard to find a new job. It’s still tough sometimes though!
For me, the key to forgiveness and letting go is to step back, look at the entire situation, and recognize my part in the disagreement. It does indeed take two to tango (not including abusive relationships of course).
I’ve been married just about twenty years to my husband. When we met he spoke only Spanish and I spoke only English. Perhaps it would have been easier if it stayed that way!! just joking. Not sure how to go on without writing pages so I’ll briefly address your questions.Hardest experiences were most definitely some of the challenges of raising my children together and dealing with my exhusband. A lot of emotions.We also had to deal with deaths, my illness, his father being in a coma for six years and his subsequent death, my father’s death, my uterine cancer, my son’s bipolar disorder and my oldest son being in the Navy for six years. And between us all of the drama of our relatives, brothers and sisters, cousins, etc. And we both learned eachother’s language!
The only difference between people who get divorced and people that don’t is that they don’t. Everyone has problems. Everyone suffers through loss and grieving and shares happy moments and joy.
We are Christian and feel God forgives us over and over. And that is what people must do in life-especially in marriage. Forgive forgive forgive.
Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for reminding me of what I am grateful for!
DH and I have been married for 10, together for 16.
The biggest thing I can say is that you have to allow the other person to change, and be willing to go along with them.
People change as others come in your lives. Needs change with jobs, kids, friends, etc…
You have to be able to allow the other person to do what they need to feel whole. And sometimes that involves spending more time with other people than they do with you.
And overall, you have to respect one another. And that includes opinions from past arguments. You don’t always have to agree, but you do have respect a differing opinion from yours, and you have to compromise without being bitter about it.
we’ve been married for 28 years, together for 32. our toughest hurdles were parenting small kids while working like galley slaves and still not having enough to get by, and a bout of depression i lumbered around with for a couple of years. we had a rough row to hoe, and it almost unraveled at one point. we were lucky to find a GREAT marriage counselor who helped give us the tools to turn it around.
we haven’t ever done anything heinous enough to each other to cause big gaping wounds that required a ton of forgiveness. but we’re humans, and neither of us is perfect, so i assume my husband does something similar to what i do- sigh and remember all the good qualities that far outweigh the occasional wart.
wish i had something big and helpful to offer!
khairete
suz
We’ve been married for … let me see… got married in 1981, so that makes 33 years, right?
I think the thing that worked for us was realizing that we were in it for the long haul… we didn’t go in thinking that if it didn’t work out, we could get a divorce…
However, neither of us (as far as I know) did anything like have an affair, or had problems with drugs or alcohol, or were abusive to each other.
Forgiveness? The forgiveness is for you… not the partner… it really hurts YOU to carry all the baggage of past hurts.
Hardest things in the marriage? Not really sure… we have 4 kids, so there were a lot of stresses… and hubby was laid off from good income producing jobs twice… (he was an engineer)… that causes a lot of stress… but we worked through it.
We’ve been married 22 years. It’s been great and we’ve had our challenges. Fighting for custody of his daughter was very hard. When she decided to go back to her mom and wreck her life that we had tried so very hard to help her out of - very hard.
We are self employed and have started another business that right now is sucking all the energy out of both of us (as well as financially) is hard. We are growing and learning and have another business that has been providing well for 17 years so having to struggle with this second one is a new strain.
I think it is key not to allow oneself to be held captive of past mistakes. Forgiveness is essential for mental well being. I can tell you from experience holding onto past hurts is detrimental to you. Your not being able to let go might mean you don’t have tools in place to help you get past it. Counseling is great for that as well as working on communication. If you don’t think you can do that then maybe look at a marriage seminar weekend. Sometimes a person who is doubtful about counseling has such a positive experience at those seminars it opens them up to the possibility of continued counsel.
I find if I’m having a hard time to concentrate on what’s good. Also bearing in mind to treat others with the same grace I want to receive when I screw up. Kind of like the old saying Lord, help my words to be sweet as honey for tomorrow I may have to eat them. 
Count my blessings and look in the mirror. Like Suz said. Much more good than the occasional wart.
Blessings to you!
Lori
We’ve been married for 11 years. Hardest experiences have been infidelity, a mood disorder, and unclear sexual orientation (all his issues). Plus financial stress brought on by some poor real estate decisions followed by job loss and underemployment, plus having SD move in with us unexpectedly and helping her process and heal from abuse an neglect.
As negative as that all seems listed out…we’ve had the good luck of not dealing with any serious health issues, my job has been steady, and at the end of the day our kids are healthy and (mostly) happy and that’s what matters.
Forgiveness? Don’t know if I’m there yet, and he harbors some resentment towards me for what he perceives to be “betrayals” (getting pregnant with our youngest child even though I was on birth control and he delayed his vasectomy is somehow something I did to him, I “side with” my son (his step-son) when I think my husband is wrong or unfair). For the most part, I’m able to no longer care about the infidelity until he brings up something and tries to make himself look like some selfless martyr (“I used to always put you first”) and then I end up bringing it up to counter that assertion (“Really? How was sleeping with other people putting me first?”). The mood disorder isn’t his fault, and the questioning his sexuality isn’t either. I wish he had disclosed that up front when we were dating because he knew about these issues, but I can understand why he didn’t so I’m over it. There were things we both wish we could have done differently (custody of SD sooner, not owning two houses at once, not taking a job that resulted in a layoff) but we did the best we could with what we knew at the time so it’s water under the bridge. Right now, it’s the ongoing tension, verbal aggression and endless conflicts that are pushing me closer to ending this than it is the major issues of the past. I can survive poor decisions, I can’t survive someone who is just an asshole to me for no reason, kwim?
Forgiveness, like love, is an active choice that you have to make again and again. For me, forgiveness is easiest when the person is sorry and has made amends and you are sure that his or her intentions going forward are good and pure. It’s harder when the person doesn’t ask for your forgiveness, or is insincere in apologizing (words but not actions, or words and actions but not spirit, still acting resentful and put-upon by your expectations), or outright refuses to even admit that their actions were wrong and acknowledge your hurt, or worst of all, continues to do the same things. In the latter case, you have to remove yourself from that person (which is why our oldest kids have no contact with their other biological parents). In the others, where someone is just clueless or stubborn but not abusive, you have to decide to either live with their shortcomings and let go of hurts because resentment only hurts you anyway or do something about it.
Good question, and good responses so far. Food for thought!
Our marriage was actually pretty easy and good for the first 10 to 12 years or so, when the kids were little and sweet and most of our “troubles” were minor and easily solved.
But having teenagers has put a LOT of stress on our relationship. We have a hard time agreeing on priorities, expectations/consequences, and how to best communicate with the kids, and of course we simply WORRY about them a lot, because we know this is an age of taking risks and not always making the best choices. With two in college money is way tighter and that of course creates more stress.
Even so, we are pretty good at forgiving each other. Neither one of us really holds a grudge, so I guess that’s not a problem for us. I think if anything we get into trouble when something bothers us and rather than discussing or confronting it we let it simmer, and then of course one day, BAM. It comes out in a totally angry and inappropriate way. Not good 
It is a journey for life. An analogy would be a wild roller coaster ride where you hang on for dear life on the turns.
Every marriage is different because of the two people involved. The longer you are married the more you have in common and the more you should begin to know each other.
Children change how the man/wife relationship works as there are times when things just don’t go as you plan or wish them to be.
Health issues come in many sizes to major for any member of the family. When the major illness happens with flight for life all you can do is to hang on and pray and believe in a higher power. My husband had two major surgeries within days of each other and it took all we had to make it emotionally. The financial was not so bad but maintaining the medical coverage for about three months was a hard deal but we made it and he made it. We were able to get the disability from Social Security due to the types of issues he had the first time around. That was a godsend.
We have had our differences in how things should operate but we did not fight with each other. It was just the way we are.
All the things that have happened to us have strengthened us and we have come out the other side as two young newly weds after 43 years together including 23 years in the military with all of those challenges.
the other Suzanne
25 years of marriage here. Tyler and I will both admit his deployments were the high and lows of our marriage. High because it made us appreciate the other and low because it was hard being apart months at a time and me taking care of the boys by myself.
Forgiveness? It’s easy to give. Hard to forget. Tyler and I haven’t had cheating issues. We’ve had financial problems, he didn’t like the way I handled money during one of his deployments. While money is not a huge trigger for us, it can be touchy. We are lucky because we made money off the sale of our home in California before we moved here to Georgia and we have his USAF Retirement, so if he lost his job? We would still be okay.
The deployments, like I said, were our biggest tests. Having kids later was good for us too. We really had a chance to be US before we were parents. We have friends who had kids right away and now are dealing with empty nest syndrome and having a hard time since they have focused much of their marriage on their kids.
I know it’s hard to let go of hurt. You use it as a wall to protect you from getting hurt again.
We’re working on 14 years. I think the hardest part is not comparing jobs. I tend to get upset when I realize that hubby gets more me time, gets to sleep in, etc. When I remember that we just have different stresses, that we are both doing the best we can, I let go of any resentments and just feel blessed.
We’ve had rough stops. No grudges, luckily, but I think we both are in this for the log haul, so you can’t really hold onto anger and pains. You have to look forward.
Married 10 years. Lots of challenges but still held it together. I have to ask God to help me all the time because i wonder if i gave up my single life for a life of annoyances. But we have 3 kids and i want to always keep my family together with a happy life. It is a choice. You have to think about whats important. Your kids, your husband, being a solid family. I want them to grow up better than i did. I dont want them seeing anger and resentment. So we work together to get through conflict, as hard as it may be. Our biggest fights have always been over in laws. It still bothers me today but ive learned to handle it better. My faith has saved me from going off the deep end. My advice is to keep your faith if you have it. If not, get it. Id probably wouldnt be married without mine.
I concur with all of you that say that we’re in it for the long haul. I did NOT get married to someday just say “well, that was fun. See ya.”
I did NOT have good role models growing up. My husband had awful role models growing up. My mom and dad will have been married for 55 years this coming June. My husband’s parents split after 19 years. According to my husband, there was some sort of financial gain to making it to 19 years. Otherwise, they would have divorced sooner. My mom expected a fairytale, but my dad, from Russian Jewish stock, knew nothing about how to treat his wife like Cinderella. Underneath all the bullshit though, I know there is a love they have for each other. They fight consistently. They would die without each other.
With me and my husband, I would say the biggest challenge, one that I am still trying to get past, is him losing his job in September of 2012. He has since been re-employed with a major corporation, and in fact just passed his one-year anniversary with them. I am tremendously proud of him, and frankly, of us, for getting to that point. Losing his job was a complete sucker punch in the ribs. Unlike maybe some of you, I did not work. I had faith that nothing like that would ever happen. When it did, we had nothing. We had to ask for help from family where, frankly, I would rather have sold my ass before taking their money. Two little girls to raise though, make it hard to do much except ask for help and hope like hell it comes.
It’s so easy nowadays to just cash it all in. Like an intact family unit is sort of a novelty, but really not something to aspire to.
My girls need their household intact. I married my husband because loved him dearly, and because I did not want to be with anyone else but him.
Just because struggles, both huge and not so big, come about, is not a big enough reason to forget what brought us together in the first place.
Happy Holidays!
Elizabeth
Been married 18 years.
We’ve faced miscarriages, loss of parents, marital issues of family mbers, times of plenty, leaner times, vacations, work travel, raising a child, working crazy schedules, etc.
Thing is-when you both have your eye on the future, and are committed for the long haul? You just keep moving forward.
Forgiveness? It’s easy when you truly LOVE the other.
My husband would have to really do something heinous before I could not forgive him. If there’s an issue, apology, forgives? It’s followed by CHANGE. That’s the difference between forgiveness and being a glutton for punishment.
We respect our marriage vows.
My husband is, and always has been, very financially responsible, even in the USMC through his deployments.
We got married at a point where we were both “grown ups.”
We don’t “need” each other, we WANT each other. Big difference.
We’ve not had infidelity. That’s a deal breaker for both of us.
If one of us steps outside the bounds of our marriage? We both know very clearly what we’re risking.
I guess to sum it up, our lives are better for being in each other’s lives.
That’s what it’s about.
We’ve been married for 17 years. the biggest challenges for us have been having/raising kids and dealing with his parents (he is an only child and parents were super focused on him versus having their own lives). The biggest struggle for me personally is not being able to accept that the workload within the marriage is not 50/50. It feels more like 90/10. I always read that you shouldn’t keep tabs on who’s doing the most work but I suspect the people who say that are the ones doing the 10%.
My husband and I have been together for 13 years. We were both previously married and we realized early on that we would do well go get started with couple’s counseling because even at the onset of our relationship, we were committed to being together.
That said, we had to really work at learning how to be together constructively. I’d say that our biggest challenges were the following:
Someone in our social group was sexually inappropriate with me and this was very difficult for both of us to deal with. My husband was the leader of that group and I had been molested before, so we were both at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with our own feelings/responsibilities in that situation.
I have anxiety which was untreated for quite a while. We had to learn how to communicate in a way which took into account my need for predictability and his need for autonomy.
We suffered a miscarriage, which was horribly devastating. We both learned that we have very different ways of grieving and dealing with loss.
Parenting-- being on the same page, not making our child the center of everything. Finding balance and not letting parenting issues become all-consuming.
For both of us-- feeling heard and listened to. Finding a way to make sure our actions are following up what we agree to.
I find forgiveness for things that have hurt or that have happened when I see that my husband is sincerely sorry. Not with words, necessarily, but more like when my son apologizes and I ask him “what’s the best way to show you are sorry?”-- “Don’t do it again/any more.” I think a lot of our growth is in doing what we say we are going to do.
I also remember that this is a man who I do love and respect, and who doesn’t generally going around doing things to hurt my feelings on purpose. I know he is worthy of the benefit of the doubt, so while I might be angry or frustrated about a situation, I also know that he shows himself to be a pretty straight player and good guy. He’s as loyal as the day is long. I trust that he isn’t looking for ways to ruin my day or upset me. He wants family harmony and my ease just as much as I want his. So, perhaps it is that deep sense of trust and commitment, backed up by our actions, which keep us going through the hard parts. An understanding that we are both our own people who are going to do things in different ways and that we both love each other deeply but aren’t each the other, if that makes sense. He doesn’t need to be able to read my mind, nor I his, and we can communicate our needs in a respectful and reasonable way.
I have been married for 12 years and we have 3 kids (ages 12, 9, and almost 4).
We have been through quite a few hard experiences. Before we even got married we were involved in a horrible car accident that almost claimed our oldests son’s life. We were in the hospital for 2 months with him on life support and in recovery.
My husband was a raging alcoholic and drug user before we got married. He quite, cold turkey, before we got married. Our first year of marriage was VERY rocky. He was a grump, mean, and spiteful. We had no idea what we were doing with a baby that needed LOTS of extra attention and he was in withdrawal for a year, I swear!
We fought a lot our first 4 years and finally went to group counseling. It was a life saver. We were finally able to communicate and see each other’s points of view.
We mosied along for a while, content and happy. Had another child. About a year and a half ago I started feeling really shitty. horrible. For about 6 months I was just holding on. Crying for no reason, angry, yelling at my kids, miserable to my husband. In January we had a big talk, my husband and I, and we were on the brink of divorce. He dreaded coming home to me, my complaining and nagging. I did some serious soul searching and finally went to see my doctor. It turns out that I was suffering from severe depression and anxiety. I went on medication and that was a life saver. I went back to school, I don’t hear those hurtful voices in my head, I am happy.
Or relationship is stronger than ever.
See, marriage is work. I stayed by his side as he struggled with addiction and sobriety, he stayed by my side through depression and anxiety. We love each other. There are lots of hurts in the past, mean things that we have probably said to each other…but under all of that there is love. We just remember that we are in this for the long haul. We love each other, we love our kids, we love the life we have created. If that means that we need to do some work to strengthen our relationship then we do it.