100 Things That Make Me Happy Besides Money

This one seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it?

We haven’t been married that long, only a little over 3 1/2 years, but we’ve dealt with enough to know how strong our marriage is.

Before we were married, I had a lot of debt. Rob didn’t have money, but he helped me in a more intangible way: He showed me what I needed to do to get out of debt. And he stayed with me when we were eating Tuna Helper every night. He had fun with me going to two McDonald’s for free dinner right after they went 24 hours and were giving away coupons for free Big Macs.

The first year and a half was rough. We were adjusting to each other. We both naturally have tempers, but we had some great pre-marital counseling, so we got through our ugly fighting stage, and we are stronger for it. We talked a lot about our fighting during that time, as well. And we learned something. Those fights, they weren’t threatening our relationship. They were (and are) opportunities for us to better understand each other. Opportunities to grow. Together.

There are many other stories I can tell that might convince you that I have a wonderful husband and that we are happily married, but I am not writing this for you. These stories are for me and my 100 Things list, because they are an intricate part of why being happily married makes me so much happier than having all the money in the world.

The night I started crying because I felt fat and didn’t think I could ever get healthy, he took me to the kitchen and we threw away all the unhealthy food. The next day, he took me shopping for healthy food.

Recently, we made an international move. It was a stressful time in our relationship, but we talked about our plans; the potential problems with them, from both of our points of view; then found solutions that we were both happy with.

I’m totally going to be adding to this as I think of more stories.