During dates & relationship its damn easy: You never disagreed, Couldn’t wait to see each other. Lingered long over candlelit dinners.

Then You  get married.

Boom! Big surprise.

Life changed. Big time.

Being together everyday, paying bills, finishing school, working, building careers, me annoying her plus Vice versa.

Suddenly that easy relationship becomes, well, not as easy.

You might Clash / clashed, sometimes you might grow tired of each other.

Occasionally you will wonder, “What the hell happened?”

But remembered in the rlshp you committed to each other 100%. So you will learn to keep the  relationship going and growing.

And it will.

Then later you will have kids that look like you.

Boom! Big surprise.

Life changed again. Big time.

Incessant demands from little people. Dirty diapers, doctor visits, cleaning up milk from the floor, never ending laundry.

Seemed like we rarely had enough time to survive let alone have a relationship. Those days of our easy going relationship were like a movie I faintly remembered.

But we’d committed to each other. So we learned to keep our relationship going and growing.

And it did.

Your kids will go off to college and marry. Suddenly (we were) empty-nesters. Right back where you started. Our house is empty just US alone again; wife and I

 Your kids all have spouses and living their own life in separate home.

We were taking care of elderly parents who some days made raising kids look like a picnic.

We’d spent a couple of decades communicating about and through our kids. Now suddenly the dynamic had changed dramatically.

And we’d each grown into different people in a way.

This was, honestly, the most difficult time in our marriage.

A couple of times I thought, “Really? Thirty years and then it flushes?”

But we’d committed to each other. So we once again learned to keep our relationship going and growing.

And thankfully, it has.

Oh, and our life changed again.

We now have our first grandchild.

A one year old boy. My wife’s new boyfriend who lives three hours away.

So I’m a bachelor for a few days often. And I’m a little jealous of her new boyfriend.

But when she’s gone she calls to check on me. Probably, good. I sometimes don’t do perfectly without her.

She tells me about her day with her baby. I tell her about my day without her.

Then she says, “I love you.”

And I reply, “I love you too. I’ll see you soon.”

Life now is the best.

Our relationship feels easy once again.

Maybe it does come full circle.

You build strong relationships not because they never change. Only because your commitment doesn’t.