collingwest | Happy Anniversary to Us!

Will & Catherine with Parents and Siblings
January 26, 2019

Happy anniversary to us! We were married on January 26, 2019, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Although both of us lived in the Atlanta metro at the time, we chose to get married there so that our parents and siblings could attend, and we were also joined by some special friends.

There are days I think, “has it only been three years? It sure feels as though it were longer.” On other days I think, “wow, has it really been three years already? That sure went quickly!” I’m pretty sure that dichotomy means things are going well overall.

I often startle people when I say it, but one comment I make is that Will and I are not a love match. The surprise, I think, comes from the fact that it’s a second marriage for both of us; and, while we’re certainly open to the possibility, due to our ages neither one of us expects that there will be any children. If that’s the case, the question goes, then why did we choose to get married at all?

To clarify: what I mean when I say this is that love isn’t the only reason we got married. Even before we started dating, both of us had long since come to the conclusion that love, in and of itself, isn’t a very strong basis for creating a marriage. We knew very soon after we met that we could love each other; but the truth was that both of us were actually looking for compatibility of spirit and belief, along with common goals and dreams. That, to us, was a much stronger basis for a marriage.

In other words, when I say we aren’t a love match, I’m by no means saying there’s no love in our marriage. There definitely is! What I’m saying is that neither of us would have been interested in marriage if love, alone, were all we had. We only dated for a total of five months: eleven weeks before we were engaged, and ten-and-a-half-weeks after. During those five months, though, we worked through an extremely detailed discernment process.

I’ll be honest: many parts of it were less than pleasant, especially when it came to the inevitable discussions about what had gone wrong in our respective first marriages. Another not-so-pleasant experience was making sure that at least one or two really serious arguments came up; we needed to know that we could argue constructively and not destructively.

But we made it through and, well, here we are!

It’s especially appropriate that the first post for this blog, which is meant to chronicle our unique domestic Church, should happen on our anniversary. The blog itself is a part of the common plans and dreams that we discovered, and were able to articulate, during the discernment process. There’s a lot more to come, and I intend to write a formal introduction post next week. For right now, though, welcome aboard and congratulations to us!

Originally posted at https://speret.stannumenterprises.com/2022/happy-anniversary-to-us/.