My husband and I celebrated our eleventh anniversary this month, and it still amazes me how fast those years have gone. I think back to when we first told people we were engaged. The reaction was almost always identical — a tilted head, a confused smile, and the inevitable, “Really? But you’re so young!” Even after our wedding, the comments continued. People reminded me I had “my whole life ahead” and questioned how I could possibly know what I wanted. Others warned me, with dramatic seriousness, “Marriage is WORK, you know?”
I remember laughing it off, but those words echoed in my head more than I expected.
A few months later, I was newly pregnant with our first baby, battling relentless morning sickness, when my husband surprised me with a pedicure. It felt like such a gift just to feel human again. As the woman worked, she casually asked what my husband did. I told her he was in medical school. She paused, then asked if he worked too. I joked that he couldn’t — school was so demanding it sometimes felt like being a widow. I chuckled, waiting for her to laugh along.
Instead, she launched into a story about her sister, who also married young and supported her husband through med school — only for him to leave her once he landed a job. “Men always marry up,” she said flatly, looking right at me. “Don’t be surprised.” I smiled politely, but inside, her words stung. I didn’t go back after that.
Back then, the idea of making it to ten years of marriage felt almost mythical. Now I know it isn’t. And I’ve learned something else, too: that dreaded phrase, “marriage is work,” really is true. But when I used to picture “work,” I imagined drudgery — worn-out clothes, long hours, a cranky boss, endless deadlines. Work sounded like something heavy, cold, and exhausting.
What I didn’t understand yet was that there are different kinds of work.
Marriage is work — but it’s the work of building your dream job with your favorite person. It’s showing up side by side, even when the day is messy. It’s inside jokes that have lasted a decade, the same old secret handshake, and watching each other grow into fuller, deeper versions of the people you first fell in love with. A dream job still has hard days, disagreements, and seasons when you miss each other’s wavelength — but there’s nowhere else you’d rather put your effort.
Now, after eleven years, two kids, and a pandemic that scrambled both our brains, that’s what I see when I look back. We didn’t just build a life — we grew up together, step by step, in the middle of all that chaos and joy.
So if you’re “too young,” like people said I was, just know that one day you may look back and realize how much you accomplished while you were still learning who you were. And if you’ve been married eleven, twelve, or even fifty years, and you meet an excited engaged couple glowing with hope, resist the urge to dim their enthusiasm with warnings.
Smile instead. Encourage them. And gently remind them — it’s going to be awesome.
