The New Wifestyle Profile | Charlene
coming at you from paradise – aka honolulu! we are thoroughly enjoying our babymoon (more posts on that to follow) so today please help me welcome charlene and sharing her wifestyle profile with us! she runs a blog and shares much about life, marriage and their adventures together! she is of the believe that a ‘happy marriage is very possible with a little work and prioritization’ so she is sharing with us about how this looks for her!
Hi Wifestylers! I’m Charlene and I blog over at Enduring All Things. I’m so excited to share my wifestyle story with you. I am a 20-something wife to Pearson and fur mamma to Pip. I use my blog to inspire other young wives continually work on and prioritize their marriage in order to build a marriage that will endure whatever comes their way. I am a Christian, blogger, nerd, software developer, coffee connoisseur, and entertainment enthusiast. I love my husband, my dog, big cities, Diet Coke, purple, pizza, and Broadway.
The Foundation:
In my home growing up, marriage was always portrayed in a positive light. My parents have been married for almost 32 years. My grandparents on my dad’s side have been married 55 years and my other grandparents for more than 60. You could say we have a good record of staying together for the long haul.For the most part, I never experienced divorce much growing up. This is because my family values marriage and we work on our relationships to make them last. Marriage is a commitment. We vowed at the alter to spend the rest of our lives with this person and we intend to keep that vow.
My husband had very similar experiences in his childhood. I’d say we’re blessed to have such great role models for our marriage and a wonderful legacy to continue.
The Love Story:
My husband and I grew up in the youth group at our church together. I met him in 7th grade when his family moved to the area started attending our church. I remember thinking he was really weird and nerdy. Which was true. But I just hadn’t realized yet that I was also weird and nerdy and we made a perfect match.
The years went by and we became better friends in high school. Particularly in 10th grade. We were in sort of a clique or sub-group of 4 or 5 kids within the youth group who did everything together. After this one youth rally in the spring, we became more than friends. We made it Facebook official that summer and have been together ever since!
Well, actually that’s not true. We broke up once. There were two terrible weeks in February of 2009, our Freshman year of college, when we weren’t together. It was a dark time. But it only lasted two weeks and then we were back together stronger than before!
We got married the summer after we graduated from college in 2012. So we dated 6 years before tying the knot and we’re now coming up on 4 years of marriage. Pearson (my husband) is in grad school getting his PhD and has about 2.5 years left. Once he finishes we plan to move back closer to home (the Southeast), buy a house, and start a family.
The ‘Wifestyle’:
I truly believe that a happy marriage is very possible with a little work and prioritization. That doesn’t mean your spouse is your whole life. But it means he or she is the most important part of your life. The only thing that might be more important is your faith.
For us, this looks like being very intentional about the time we spend together and the ways we communicate.
Pearson is working toward his PhD in Biophysics and works 70 to 80 hours per week. I hardly ever see him. So when we do see each other, we make the most of it. We put our phones away when we hang out. We check in and tell each other how we’re doing on a regular basis. We find fun things to do together. We keep each other in the know about everything that goes on in our individual lives. We try to communicate lovingly yet effectively when problems arise.
None of these things are very easy but marriage is about sacrifice. The easy thing would be to just live our individual lives and continue to grow apart because of the time we spend apart. But it’s so worth the effort. Anything great in life always is, right?
The Individuality:
I am a software developer by day and a blogger by night. I love both of those things very much. Pearson likes computers, but in a very different way from me. We have some common ground there to talk about, but for the most part, that is my thing.When we were first married, I tried crafting and sewing and I was just not good at it. I’m so glad I found my blogging hobby. Especially since Pearson works so much.
I also love reading and I’ve found a new love for adult coloring!
Pearson, the poor thing, doesn’t have much time for hobbies. His individuality stems from his work. I do not understand a single thing he does. Actually, I’m learning more and more, but what I know doesn’t even scratch the surface.
It’s so important to have individuality in your marriage for many reasons.
For one, you don’t want to become codependent. While I believe it’s perfectly okay to need your spouse, it is not okay to depend on him or her for your happiness and contentment. That’s not a job any human can be responsible for nor should they have to.
Secondly, it doesn’t matter how much you love someone, you can run out of things to talk about. Pearson and I both enjoy talking about our individual lives. And it’s great that we can have a little break from each other to do our own thing and then regroup and be a couple again.
Being a wife is just part of who I am. It’s a big part, but it’s not everything.
The Bottom Line:
As I said before, I believe a happy marriage is possible but that it takes a little work. And I don’t just mean that you have to work at it when things are bad. You have to put effort in all the time. It needs to be a top priority. My blog tagline is “Build a marriage that will endure whatever comes your way” because if we continue work on our marriage every day, it will be strong enough to withstand the hardships that come down the road.
The Questions:
- Do you have couples you look up to in your marriage?
- How do you keep your individuality while still connecting with your spouse?
- Do you believe you’re building a marriage that will endure whatever comes your way?
Elyse
May 4, 2016 at 5:59 am
I love what you said about you as a wife is only part of who you are! it can be hard to carve out who you are when you’ve been with your husband a long time and it’s great that you’re aware and make steps to only have that as one aspect of who you are!
I’ve had the privilege to be surrounded by positive marriage role models as well and I think that it has the power to keep your “head in the game” so to speak when rough patches happen. Sort of the mentality of, “if they can do it, I can do it too!”
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Audrey
May 4, 2016 at 8:38 am
Aww, I loved learned Charlene’s story! It’s kind of funny- in March of my college freshman year Kyle and I broke up for a short amount of time. (Ok, it was a 24-hour break up, but it was enough to scare us into valuing one another and not taking our time for granted!)
I think my husband and I have a marriage that endures. We’re actually stronger as a couple in the bad times- we solve conflict well. When things are “good” we have to focus on not taking that time for granted- it’s a little tougher to connect. We value our individuality, but doing things together is always my favorite 🙂
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