Marriage twelve years in

My husband Dan and I hit the 12 year mark of being married in May. Our anniversary happened to fall on Mother's Day, and a busy Sunday for church things, and the day before I left for a week of reserve duty. In other words, it was just an ordinary day, pretty typical for us in this stage of life. My mother offered to watch the kids earlier that week, and I honestly cannot remember what Dan and I did – – probably crashed on the couch, and went to sleep by 9 PM.

Each anniversary now seems somehow more significant and less significant all at the same time. We do not celebrate each passing year with much fanfare, but I suppose we never really did. Yet with each year that we have under our belts, there is a sense of accomplishment, of security. We are doing this. We are building our lives together. We met at age 18, so that means we are approaching the milestone when we will have known each other for as long as we have not known each other. We will have known our lives together more tha…