The other day I was thinking what makes our relationship last. It's been 9 years since Jonathan and I have been together, 6 and a half years of parenthood, and almost 3 years of marriage. Till this day I can say we're still in love with one another. We sat down and thought of our top 5 reasons why. 1. We're each other's cheerleaders!
Our lives aren't simple, like most people. I (Joanne) still work 4 days a week in the salon as a hairstylist, Jon is fully persuing his passion and love for photographing weddings, we are trying to be the best parents possible to our 2 beautiful girls, and we're doing all this with our heads still on our shoulders. Regardless of the frustrations either of us go through in life, we try our bests to cheer one another on. Through good times and in bad times. We've always believed that if you take away all factors in life: children, material things, homes, cars, jobs, money, etc; we have one another and we do our best to pick one another up when the other's fallen down.
2. Humor/Laughter/Sillyness
Often times we hear from people that we make parenting seem like a breeze. We also here "Those Encarnacion's have so much fun." Well if you only knew; there are times when we cry, scream at the top of our lungs, and want to pull our hair out of our heads. The mustaches on our fingers are REAL TATTOOS. That's right. We have mustaches tattooed on the inside of our fingers. NO WE DO NOT DRAW THOSE ON EVERYDAY. =) It's our simple reminder that sometimes you just need to laugh and be stupid especially with your husband or your wife!
3. Honesty
Honesty is an interesting one because one day at the salon I asked my client, "Name the top 5 things that keeps your marriage strong." And she mentioned 'honesty'. When we dug deeper with that reason I realized that honesty was just not about telling each other the truth about where you went or if you spent money when you weren't supposed to, but honesty in everything. Honesty in how you felt if the other person hurt your feelings. I know it sounds silly, but there are times where I simply have to tell Jon. "What you said hurt my feelings." And though I feel like a 6 year old telling my classmate how I feel; that simple phrase is powerful enough to tear some of the hardest walls down. It goes both ways because Jon has often had to tell me I've said something that hurt his feelings.
4. Trust
Trust is simple. You gotta trust one another in everything. Trust that your husband or wife will remember your anniversary or remember to pick up the dry cleaning. Trust that no matter what you say or do they will always be there to forgive you and walk with you every single day.
5. Date one another.
This is something that I feel is SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT!! When you've reached a certain place in your relationship where things go stale, you have to continue to look for the exciting things or remember the things that they used to do that made you fall in love with them in the first place. Jonathan and I don't really get too much time to go on date nights. It's definitely going to be our 2011 Resolution to make more time outside of the home with each other. But even when we're home and the kids are asleep and the e-mails are replied, editing is done, and house is semi clean; we try our best to sit with one another un interrupted and be there for one another's interests. Sometimes I watch Jonathan play video games. Yes for all you XBOX Gamers out there he's on XBOX Live!! And sometimes he sits and eats popcorn with me while we watch a movie of my choice. A lot of times we just flirt with one another which can be a lot of fun too. It brings us back to when we were 18 and 20 when we first started dating and we couldn't get enough of one another. I love it!!
Why the reason for this post?
Who knows who cares...I just thought I should share some insight on love. We're not experts what so ever, but we believe that love still exists in a world where divorce is common and where children grow up not knowing their other parent. We also believe that if we didn't allow ourselves to trust one another to give our love a chance, we would've never known what true love is.
If we didn't believe in love, than we wouldn't have helped one another become the people we are now.
