5 years of marriage

5 years of marriage = 5 years of adventure 

Five years feels like such a big milestone for us, especially since things haven't always been happily ever after.  

The day after we said our I do's, Tom and I went our separate ways to our separate homes...700 miles apart from each other. And things stayed that way. Not the most traditional way to start off a marriage, but the distance was necessary while we each pursued our dreams in graduate school. And yes, we could have taken turns attending grad school, but I really felt like that would potentially create friction and resentment in our marriage. In a true partnership, you should never have to give up a part of yourself simply to appease someone else. So there we were. Having one spouse in grad school is stressful enough, but having two. Well that's a whole different story. Often times, I would feel like I was failing my husband because I couldn’t be as supportive as I wanted of him pursuing his PhD. Because how could I fully support him when I was so focused of getting a doctorate degree of my own. So yes, this whole marriage has been a bit out of the box for what’s typical at this stage. Finally, now at the five-year mark, we live together. Finally, at the five-year mark, we have established ourselves thanks to Tom finishing his PhD and me entering my last year dental school.  I can hardly even believe that we have been married for 5 years already because now…right now-it feels like the best is yet to come.