GUEST SERIES ON LASTING LOVE: By Summer

Please welcome Summer of SummerCushman.com...

My husband and I recently celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary and if you ask anyone that has spent time with us, most of them will tell you that it’s obvious how much we truly enjoy one another. I’m often asked about our marriage and what makes it work the way it does. The answer I give is that we follow two simple rules:

1. We’re not allowed to die. (I know, I know... we can’t actually follow this one. But it makes us feel better to hold it up as a rule anyway!)

2. We aren’t allowed to go too far off in a direction that the other doesn’t have at least a basic understanding of. (This one is really the key.)

Let me give you a few silly examples: I used to be a professional make-up artist obsessed with fashion models and trends. When I was deep into this work, Jeremy knew all the top cosmetic labels and could identify the fashion models by name. When we moved in together, he loved watching football on Sundays. I knew nothing about sports and therefore thought Sundays kind of sucked. One day Jeremy created an elaborate football field on the coffee table and taught me the basic rules of the game so I could understand what was happening (and now I’m actually the bigger football fan in our house!).

Over the past 15-years we have both grown and changed a lot. I left the cosmetic world for seminary and yoga teacher training. And Jeremy is now pursuing his PhD in Rhetoric and Composition. Clearly our lives have followed a winding path, but we have taken each step of it together. I can talk rhetoric and Jeremy can talk yoga. We understand these things simply because the other one loves them. For us, that’s enough of a reason to love them too!


{Image via Bygone Americana}