I thought nineteen years deserved it’s own post. 🙂
Tab and I met my sophomore year, his junior year of college at Arkansas State University. I was “talking” to one of his friends and after we’d gone to dinner we stopped by Tab’s apartment for a bit. It was in the middle of Tab’s football off-season and he was living his best offensive lineman life. I even think he had a crazy long goatee happening at the time so we met that night but just a quick introduction because remember I was “talking” to his friend. Two years later, I was living in the apartments on campus over the summer with a few girlfriends. After church we were laying out by the pool and guess who happened to walk by? Tab! We chatted a bit, I later invited him over for dinner {and I actually told him to bring friends but he came solo-his genius plan if you hear him tell the story}, we began chatting and the rest is history. We were engaged about seven months later and married five months after that!
While we don’t have a perfect marriage {no one does, even if they say they do}, we’ve worked out some kinks over the years that have been helpful. These are the top five pieces of advice that quickly come to my mind…
*We don’t keep score. Trust me when I say, KEEPING SCORE IS HOW MY HEART IS WIRED. I wish I was kidding. It just comes naturally to me, but through the years and LOTS of prayer, I’ve learned to not keep score. And my goodness-what a difference it makes! A big part of the reason this was the opposite of helpful is because I was keeping track of ALL the things I did but I didn’t even know all the things he was doing so he was missing out on a lot of my invisible points. 😉
*We laugh and have fun together. This was important to us both when we were finding “the one” during our dating journeys and let me tell you…it was worth the wait! We don’t take ourselves too seriously which keeps our days extra joyful.
*Forgiveness is important. We mess up, we hurt each others feelings, etc…but we forgive each other and move on. We don’t have time to hold grudges. We have carpools to drive, kids to feed, and laundry to do. We’ve gotta move on!
*PRAYER is key! I think this one can go back all the way to my grandparents. I have no doubts my grandparents and my own parents spent years {and still do} praying for the husband and marriage I would one day have. Tab and I often talk about that and how we are praying for the future Slaughters to come. But we’re also praying for each other and our family on the daily.
*Prioritize each other. Marriage isn’t easy. Sometimes I’m so hard to deal with and other days Tab’s the difficult one, but we continue to put each other first. Over and over again.
I’m so thankful for this guy and the nineteen years we’ve been given. I’m excited about the next nineteen to come!
XO
