What would you say the hardest thing about marriage is? The wedding, or what happens after? As much hard work and preparation goes into the wedding planning – it’s what we do with our marriage after all of the guests have gone home that’s the most important. Just like our cars will fail if we don’t keep them maintained, so will our marriages if we don’t make them priorities.

It isn’t easy, is it? We have jobs and careers to think about, bills and financial pressures. And when children enter the picture, it’s a whole different story. We’re tempted to let our marriages run on auto-pilot while we deal with everything else. Strong marriages don’t happen by accident.

That’s where I was 7 years ago. We were married for almost 7 years at that point, and I was focused on everything else but my husband.