Like most blogs, this one started out because of something that happened in real life.
Our names are Jeremy and Kari, and we said our vows on December 10, 1993. In eight days, we celebrate 25 years together as man and wife.
Whenever we’ve posted the usual photos of our life together, or wished each other a sappy “Happy Anniversary” to each other on Facebook, we get a lot of congratulations and often questions of, “How did you do it?”
Generations ago, this wouldn’t be much of an accomplishment. But times have definitely changed. Over the years, we’ve watched our own friends in their marriages, too. Some have triumphed, but many have not, becoming another statistical casualty :
41% of first marriages end in divorce. 60% of second marriages and almost 3/4 of third marriages do.
Although the rate of divorce is dropping in the US (finally), it mainly has to do with the decline in people getting married. We don’t think that’s a good thing – marriage is a wonderful thing when both people are committed and “in it to win it”.
That’s the “global” mission of this blog – to celebrate and encourage the incredible, life-affirming institution of marriage.
But what finally got us to take action is much closer to home.
Our son, Joshua, recently got engaged to a wonderful young woman, and we’re excited to see him take this major step in his life.
One evening, Josh and his finance asked us how we have been able to remain happily married for nearly 25 years. As we began to answer questions for this newly engaged couple, we realized how helpful it would have been to have a “go to” couple when we were starting out, to answer questions and give us guidance.
We decided to record our advice, observations, comments about our daily challenges, and answers to their (and hopefully, your) questions, in a way that would be a blessing to many more couples than just our son and his soon-to-be-bride.
As with all things in life, not everything is black and white. The advice you will find here is based solely on our own personal experience and may not apply to you. If you’ve had a marriage as long as ours, or even longer, we sincerely hope you’ll lend your experiences to what we write here.
But even if you’re newlyweds, you may even disagree, or have found your own solutions to some of the issues we talk about here. We love that! Share it! We’ll encourage you to respond here, on the site, but also on our blog’s Facebook page. We hope to see you there.
Finally, here is something close to Kari’s heart: this blog is about working through every challenge in marriage, but not about enduring behavior that is outright destructive. If either of you is in danger of physical harm, are being dragged into illegal or immoral behavior, or are fearful of your partner, call 911 immediately. There are lots of resources out there that can help.
We intend to post at least once per week on the blog, and may have many other opportunities to chat with our readers on Facebook. We hope to see you there!
Kari & Jeremy (Torgerson)
