David and I reached a milestone in our relationship.  My life has been an incredible journey, and I feel exhilarated that I shared the last ten years with David. We celebrated our 10th anniversary on July 8, 2018. We came to one another tattered and beaten, following difficult relationships and painfully failed marriages.

Our History

David and I dated in high school. We dated for a year in 10th grade and part of our senior year. We broke up in December 1989 and went our separate ways. He joined the Navy and left to “sea” the world, met his wife and left the Navy for the IT world. I moved from home and married someone I knew only a few months on a whim at 18. Both relationships ended in divorce in 10 years.

Honestly, neither of us knew what to expect. We hadn’t seen each other in over 20 years. David had located my Classmates.com profile, and we sometimes exchanged children’s photos or shared family updates through the years. However, that was the extent of our relationship. After his divorce, he traveled 80% of the time and needed someone to watch his home while away. I needed a safe place for my boys and me to heal from our traumatic lives. He had two extra rooms for them, and I had a successful, portable home-based business so I could watch his house while he was away. He had two much younger children of his own. We agreed that if the arrangement didn’t work for any of us, I would find my own place and David and I would remain friends.

So, the boys and I moved from Orlando to Minneapolis suburbs. It took almost a year before I made any friends, but that’s a painful topic for another blog post should I ever write it. I had boys to settle in school with IEP plans to write, a business to run, a house to watch, and wounds to lick.  Through time, David and I became more than friends.

Our Present

I cannot believe those events live in the past so far behind me. Our marriage still feels like newlywed life, so how can those events be over 11 years ago? It doesn’t feel possible. We were both married for ten years in our previous relationships, and agree that those years were some of the longest, hardest of our lives.

But David and I have shared many milestones through the years. Our children have graduated from high school. His are attending college. They each have their own apartments or college dorms. Together, we progressed from managing a busy household with children to a somewhat slower home with cats. We hauled up our lives and moved back to our hometown in Florida. Through it all, we dealt with difficult people, hardships, and painful decisions. We survived dreary days, but we did it together with minimal conflict – a first for both of us.

Our Future

I believe the next ten years will be better than the first ten years. Many things generating external tensions in our lives come to a head this year and will no longer cause issues. It’s not that I don’t foresee future problems, but I know that whatever obstacles happen tomorrow, David and I will weather them together.

So, I look forward to our next 10-year milestone, but I also look forward to living in a single place for more than five years. But that’s another milestone – and another blog post.

Be sure to read our “Meet the Taylors” page for more about us.

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Alicia Taylor

Blogger at TaylorLife

Happily married to the love of my life. It's just us, our 5 cats, and our beautiful woods. I'm loving living back in the Florida panhandle being close to family. I love cooking, living a healthy lifestyle, taking care of our cozy home, and trying new things.

We enjoy hosting parties and my husband and I are both avid gamers. You can find me on PS4 as SunshineFlaGirl. We also play tabletop RPGs and eurogames.

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