Anniversary Extravaganza

It's been awhile since I've posted! Most of that is from finals and working all day so that when I come home all I wanna do is sit in front of the TV with a bag of chips. We moved apartments recently and that was...an adventure. We spent, I promise, 10 hours cleaning the oven in our old apartment and spent several other days cleaning everything else just to move into our new apartment and see the same dirty things. There was a ring in the toilet, dust on top of the fridge, crud in the oven, particles under the cushions in the couch...

Now anyone who knows my husband and I would know we definitely had a cow. Lol it was tense for those two days. And anyone who knows me knows I'm a one day mover, including unpacking. I hate having a mess in my apartment...can't even function with boxes all around! Hate it! We got it all sorted out though, unpacked, went back to work and celebrated our first year of marriage last Saturday...which brings me to pictures!

I bought this dress 5 months ago. This is the first day I've been able to fit into it. 

YESSS!!!

On the temple grounds in Idaho Falls.

Is he not the cutest?!

Husband: Hey take a picture by those nice flowers!

Me: Um...there are bees by those flowers...

Me :)

Handsome husband.

My husband and I got to do a lot of reflecting on the last year. It's so interesting how much you find out about yourself being married to someone who lives and thinks differently than you. Aside from my husband's Nigerian culture, I think I have adjusted well to his habits and expectations. I think the hardest thing for me was letting go of what I had experienced as a kid with my parents.

I love my parents more than anything! My dad's bipolar mania just made it a little difficult sometimes to have a peaceful home. There were threats of divorce, ruined family trips due to arguments, kids taking sides, etc. At the age of 26 having been away from home since I was 18, you'd think I'd get over what happened to me. But I find that I creep the insecurities from my childhood into my marriage and it affects our marriage. In other words, I've been keeping the negativity my parents had in their marriage and letting it live on in my marriage.

 So how do you stop doing that, you might ask? My cure was making the decision to talk to a therapist. I know, I know: sounds like I'm trying to say I have SERIOUS issues. But if you think about it, this is a serious issue. I was holding against my husband things that my father did, things that my ex-fiance did. My husband would accidentally run a red light and I'd insinuate that he did it on purpose because my ex-fiance used to do that. My husband would bring up something that I did in the past as a way to move forward with it but I would assume he was trying to keep punishing me for the action, just like my dad. It really was becoming a serious issue!

Talking to the therapist, I learned that I was creating a cycle of mistrust and blame. And it all started with me not trusting my father and not trusting my ex-fiance. Being the daughter of a Psychologist you would think I'd know better than to transfer emotions to another person. This experience has taught me that above all, I am human; there are no mistakes that are exempt for me.

The conversation with the therapist changed my whole outlook on my role in our marriage. I started realizing that I'm the one who doesn't trust my husband. I'm the bad guy. It wasn't him doing anything to hurt my feelings intentionally, but I created a story that he was. It felt so good to learn what I was doing wrong so I could start eliminating it from my habits. It was liberating. I felt like when I left the session with that therapist, the "stories" I had been creating about my husband died and with it died a portion of the pain I had from my father and my ex-fiance.

All of this was done prior to our Anniversary Extravaganza. By the time we celebrated, I had let go of the stories, of the pain, and of the habits. Our marriage has become 100 times stronger as a result. And I'm so grateful. Grateful the Lord loves me enough to have given me a friend who suggested the therapy. Grateful he granted me a man in my life who truly has my interests and feelings in his own heart. Grateful to have the opportunity to make some changes without having a ton of babies around (that would make it harder for sure).

I look forward to more lessons, more growing, more happiness this year. Here's to another Udu year.