Happy New Year everyone! It’s time for my annual marriage review post because tomorrow is my 5 year wedding anniversary.
Wow. 5 years. What a journey.
There is so much I want to say, especially about this past year. Coincidentally I started my blog the same year we got married and so I’ve been recapping each year of my marriage on here. I’m so glad I started this little tradition because I can look back and remember things I totally forgot and see the progression of our life together.
During our first year of marriage, we were living in Virginia. I was in graduate school and the hubs was working three hours from me in Richmond. It was very hard on our marriage to do that long distance in the early months. We did not live together until we got married, which I know is unusual these days and probably for good reason because the adjustment to living together was challenging too. The year ended on a high note though when we found out the hubs got accepted to medical school in November. The only catch was that medical school was several thousand miles away on a small island called Grenada…
During our second year of marriage, we spent time long distance again, as I finished my master’s degree in history and hubs went ahead and moved to Grenada. I graduated in May and moved to Grenada in August. I had a lot of unusual experiences during my early months in Grenada, including a very harrowing experience of getting sucked into a flash flood in the Grenadian rainforest. Hubs finished the year strong, completing the first year of a 5 year MPH/MD program and earning his masters degree in public health.
This is the year we really got cracking on our finances. My blog finally started to become profitable. We paid off all of our credit card debt after some not so great money moments, and I got a job teaching English at the university in Grenada. That job would finally push us into a comfortable financial position, one that we had never before experienced. Hubs finished his first year of medical school (or his second year of his 5 year program.)
Our 4th year of marriage was definitely full of highs and lows. Hubs endured some ultra challenging semesters in school and prevailed. It was very high stress and sometimes we’d go weeks without having a normal conversation. Mid year my blog started to make me more income than my day job, and I decided to make a plan to become self employed by the end of the year. I worked harder than I ever thought possible. Literally every minute of my day was spent working between my day job and my blog, but I saved $20,000, was able to send the hubs to India for three weeks as a study abroad trip, and of course, we found out toward the end of the year that not only were we pregnant, but we were pregnant with twins.
All of this bring us to this year….
Year 5
- On January 1, I finally became self employed after years of side hustling.
- We started the year living in Louisiana, experiencing all the adjustments that came from leaving our island home.
- Our dog Julep miraculously turned 5 years old despite her constant attempts to eat things she shouldn’t.
- We hosted two of hubs’ friends in our home, and all 3 of them spend the first three months of the year studying all day long for a massively important exam called the Step 1. Hubs took the Step 1 in March and 10 days later….
- Our twins were born!
- The most difficult days of our entire life, not just our year, were the two weeks our children spent in the NICU. We don’t actually think many of our family members or friends fully understood just how much that impacted us, but it’s something we would never wish on any parent ever.
- One week after we brought our babies home, we found out we had 16 days to move to New Jersey so hubs could start his 3rd year of medical school. Needless to say, with very, very tiny babies at home, we were stressed to the max trying to figure out where we were going to live and how we were going to travel up here.
- After overnighting a $6,500 check to our new landlord, an amount we diligently saved the year before, we made it to New Jersey on a Saturday and on Monday, hubs began his Internal Medicine rotation. He then went through rotations in Pediatrics, Ob/Gyn, and Psychiatry. Despite the immense demands on his time at home, he did well in school and made me very proud.
- Because of their difficult start, I was so, so proud to breastfeed my twins for 4.5 months. I still miss it!
- We paid our credit cards off in full every month and did not dip into our emergency fund, even when we had to make $700 repairs on our car.
- I wrote my first viral blog post ever. It was shared over 44,000 times and liked more than 225,000 times. Because of it, I was interviewed by Huffington Post Live. This interview was the first time I stepped in another room and let someone else watch the babies.
- I brought the principal balance on my student loan down $1,000.
- The number one thing we argued about was chores. You’ll notice this is true in every single marriage review post. I do have hopes for 2015 though as we have now instituted chore check lists to deal with this issue! It only took 5 years to figure that out. 🙂
- We raised two children for 9+ months! Our son started crawling a few days before Christmas. They are both flourishing and doing well.
- 2014 is definitely the year of sleep deprivation, which does crazy things to you. It’s true what they say – the first few months of your children’s life are designed so that both you and they forget it. 😉
- We certainly had our fair share of arguments, terrible moments, and very high stress in 2014, but we also had moments of pure joy, happiness, and love.
- Looking back, I think I have had more moments where I actually felt happiness this year than all of the years of my life put together. Even though 2014 was hard in many respects, I do think our children have really strengthened our marriage. Sure, kids add a big stress to marriage but at the same time they are very unifying too. I know some of this sounds contradictory, but I find that life is incredibly complex and when you live a very full life, this is even more true.
Overall, I’m happy to have survived 2014. It’s a year the hubs and I will never forget, one we will look back on and say wow, we did that! and it will always be the year that our beautiful children, the true lights of our lives, were born.
On a personal note, I love you hubs. I proud of us for everything we’ve been through in the last 5 years – all of the moves, all of the school, all of the challenges and all of the triumphs. Here’s to many, many more…
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Thank you everyone for being a part of this journey.
Congratulations on your 5th wedding anniversary! It sounds like you had a whirlwind of a year! I’m glad to hear your sons are doing well and I can imagine how much fun they were this Christmas.
Congrats on your wedding anniversary! I’m so happy for you and it sounds like you’ve had a great 2014. Looking forward to what 2015 brings for you and your family. 🙂
This was so beautiful and your life is wonderful. Congratulations for everything and I wish you continued happiness. Your blog has been an inspiration for me and I look forward to following your story in 2015.
Happy anniversary and HNY!
What a year! Happy anniversary to you both!
Happy Anniversary to you and your husband!
Happy Anniversary!!! 🙂
Love y’all so much! Cheers to a wonderful 2015 ahead! XO
Sounds like a wonderful year. Definitely celebrate that you survived raising your children for nine months. It may seem ridiculous, but I consider it a huge accomplishment – even more so woth twins! Cheers to the new year!!
Congratulations on a wonderful, big year. Happy Anniversary.
Just stumbled across your blog, and I just love your story. Happy anniversary to you both, and happy new year!
Aw thanks Chelsea!
Congratulations on your 5th wedding anniversary!! Man, if you guys can make it through all that, you can make it through anything 🙂 What beautiful photos, too. Here’s to many, many more anniversaries!
Happy Anniversary and congratulations on an amazing year! 🙂
Congrats on your anniversary! This post is so very sweet! You’re inspiring me to go back and think of the “reviews” for each year of our marriage. Such a great idea. I had to laugh about the chore-arguments because we argued about certain chores for about 5 years as well! But, we finally figured out a system and nary an argument since. Maybe there’s like a 5 year chore-adjustment period in a marriage or something :). Hope you’re having a wonderful start to the new year with your beautiful family!
2014 was such a crazy year for y’all!! You managed to cram quite a few things into there. I think you left out some of your work wins, too, like launching your coaching classes.
Here’s to a slightly less challenging, but still totally awesome 2015.
Happy Anniversary, and congrats on making it through a very busy year 🙂 I still cannot get over your 16 day move. I had one close to that, but we knew it was coming, and we didn’t have twins!
Happy 5 year anniversary Cat and Hubs!!!! I loved seeing your pictures over the year and laughed when I saw your wedding picture because Beanette looks just like you and Bean looks just like Hubs in that picture. 🙂 It’s crazy how much you two have been through in 5 years, and you will go through a lot more. At least you are on each other’s side and work together to make your family and home a success. Congrats!!
Cat, LOVE this post! That last picture of you guys after delivery made me ugly cry at work!
Heather S (your fellow April 2014 Twin Mom 🙂
Aw thanks so much for reading Heather!
Cath, Happy Anniversary! You two look good together! More years of love and happiness to come!
Congratulations on five years! I love how you’ve done a review for every year. I wish I had thought of that… 😛 Best wishes for the next year with your family.
Aww, you guys are just too cute! Happy Anniversary! You’ve been through so much together, but it’s clear you’ve come out much stronger for it. Always an inspiration.
Happy Anniversary!!! You guys are an inspiring couple!! Wishing you a great 2015 together! 🙂
Happy Anniversary!! What an amazing journey!! Wishing you all the best in 2015!!
Happy anniversary! What a lovely post.
What a beautiful journey! Happy Anniversary and many more to come.
Aw thanks KK!
Congrats Cat! Our 5th wedding anniversary is coming up in April and time really does fly. Looking forward to your continued success. Thanks for all of your help!
Happy Anniversary. That is very cool that you have an online record of your entire marriage. Congrats on all you’ve accomplished.
Incredible! Your story has me thinking of my husband, who’s going into the gloom-and-doom terms at SGU right now. I’m relieved to read your story and know that others survive and thrive in spite of the crazy life changes. Happy anniversary to you two! 🙂