Weddings are moments that should be treasured, an experience in your life that should never be forgotten. That’s why when I was married in Nashville we hired the best wedding photographer in Nashville that money can buy. To be honest, I had not once thought to myself that I would ever see myself as a married individual. Growing up in an environment with parents who treated their own marriage as something toxic, a weapon that they could use against one another in order to gain leverage over the other taught me from a young age that marriage was a broken human system.
I hated the idea of for years. Even as a child I was firm against the idea of marriage, even dating for a period, due to my parents inability to come together as two reasonable adults and simply divorce each other. They did divorce, when I was seventeen, after years of battling one another. To me, it seemed as if their one singular goal in life was to make each other as miserable as possible – they didn’t even pretend to stay together for my sake. No, it’s like they lived off the hate for each other.
I’m lucky that I met my wife. I’m lucky that she was able to show me what love was meant to be and what it could become. A marriage did not have to be a bitter, hate fueled thing. It didn’t have to inevitably end as so many seem to do in our modern culture. It took her some convincing but she believes in me enough, and loves me enough, to care deeply enough to help work with me within the context of a relationship and a marriage. Because of her, I have learned what it means to have a relationship and a partner of life.