A lot of our story has unfolded publicly, but much of the real work happens quietly, offstage—growth that doesn’t photograph well and doesn’t fit neatly into updates.
I want to be clear: I don’t believe in staying in toxic or unsafe situations. But I do believe that sometimes two people enter a relationship carrying more history than they realized—old wounds, imperfect coping skills, and a shared tendency toward humor that occasionally masks pain. Add in a fair amount of chaos, and it’s understandable why not everyone has always understood us.
Still, we didn’t walk away.
We’ve had supporters, skeptics, critics, and people who landed somewhere in the middle. Fair enough. We’ve probably earned all of it at different points.
Call it stubbornness, commitment, faith, or grace at work. As we move toward our seventh year together (with our April anniversary ahead), what stands out most to me now is not the intensity—but the endurance.
Mike has stood beside me through some of the darkest years of my life. My depression began long before he entered the picture, and he has seen me at my most unsteady. Even in moments when things were strained or emotions ran high, he never withdrew what mattered most: stability, safety, and presence. Those things count more than grand gestures ever could.
Our relationship has always carried contrast:
Passion paired with friction.
Humor threaded through hard conversations.
Disagreements that eventually soften into understanding.
He has challenged me to grow—to work harder, to be more discerning with my words and disclosures, to bring more lightness into my days, and to think more carefully about money (even when we didn’t always agree on what that looked like).
And I have challenged him, too—by learning to name my emotions, set boundaries, and communicate more clearly, even when it would have been easier not to.
What I see now is not perfection, but progress. A steady, sometimes uneven movement toward something healthier and more grounded than what we started with.
I remain grateful for prayer—for healing, wisdom, and continued growth, both individually and as a couple, and in our relationships with others.
And, because a little truth often hides inside humor:
Marriage is often just two people taking turns being the steady one.
Some weeks, we manage it better than others.
*revised by author 1/18/2026
