Greetings! Some of you may know my work from the blogs I write over in the Pets section or from guest blogs I’ve written in Marriage or a few other sections. I’ll still be contributing to Pets as well, but today I officially join Heather Long and Karri Weathers as a Marriage Blogger. Wooohooo!
I’m very excited about keeping company with you all. You, however, might be wondering, “Who is this Courtney Mroch and why is she qualified to write about love, marriage, and relationships?”
Well, let’s see if I can answer that…
21 Years and Counting
I am married. Some would say Wayne and I were married a long time before we made it official with our vows. We started dating when I was 15 and a sophomore in high school. (Hmmm…sounds uncannily similar to Karri’s relationship, doesn’t it?) We survived almost four years of long-distance dating before Wayne moved down to Tucson at the end of my sophomore year in college so we could live together.
We finally took the long walk down a short aisle in 1995, after nine years of dating. This month we’ll celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary.
A Romantic at Heart
In True Love Doesn’t Equal Perfect Love, I wrote about how I believed in the “happily ever after” fairy tale ending that’s supposed to come when you meet your Prince Charming. (Or Princess Charming for readers of the male persuasion.) I say believed as in past tense not because I’m disenfranchised, but because getting married marks the end of one story but is just the beginning of another.
I do believe in Love as a Destiny. I don’t believe everyone finds it. I believe it can be lost, either through death, divorce, or neglect. I now believe (and realize) love and marriage (or any kind of lifelong partnership) is hinged on hard work and devotion, patience, tolerance, respect, and communication. I believe if you work at those, your love will last forever and in the end you will have lived happily ever after.
Marriage as a Garden
Here’s how I view marriage and relationships: Love is the seed you plant in your relationship. Like seeds, a good marriage needs good soil, water, and sunshine. Tears and laughter both help a marriage grow, but it will always come back to the soil. If you’ve picked a good foundation in which to plant your seed, you have what it takes to weather the droughts and floods that occasionally batter all relationships.
Along the Marriage Highway
During our years, Wayne and I have traversed some amazing routes, very sad ones, a few bitter ones, hysterical ones, tender ones, trying ones, boring ones, and of course many very loving ones. We’re still on our journey, so I’m still learning how to navigate some stretches. As I do, I’ll share my thoughts, theories, and observations with you. I’ll also reminisce about scenery I’ve seen from other paths.
If you ever have any comments, questions or concerns you’d specifically like me to address, feel free to holler. I love hearing from readers, and hope you’ll come to love hearing from me too.