there is no blueprint for marriage.

because every marriage is made up of two different people and so it will never look the same.

but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from each other. we all have different stories but there are similarities and areas of overlap and moments of intersection that teach and instruct and inform and encourage and challenge.

which is what this series is all about. i asked a bunch of friends of mine who have been married for different numbers of years to share a story or a challenge they faced or one thing that really helped them with the hope that someone else somewhere [and hopefully a bunch of someone elses] will benefit from hearing it and be encouraged or challenged in their own story.

you might be married for less than a year and benefit from someone who has just celebrated their 20 year mark.

you might be married for four years and learn something from someone who has been married for just 2.

you might not even be married at all – and there is still something here for you to learn if you will give it a chance. 

i just assumed that if we got a bunch of different people from different years of marriage to tell some stories that we would get a very mixed bag of experiences shared.

we did. and i hope you will enjoy them. for some years of marriage i got more than 1 story and am looking to add more as we go along. so if you have a story to share, please email me at brettfish@hotmail.com and some of them might get added to this mix.

in the meantime, i give you ‘Marriage through the years’ –

Marriage Year 1: Meet Kerstin and Carl Fourie

Marriage Year 2: Meet Sally and Benjamin Shannon

Marriage Year 2: Meet Steven and Megan Cottam

Marriage Year 2: Meet Emma and Gordon Whiley

Marriage Year 2: Meet Elaine and Dave Kim

Marriage Year 3: Meet Ruth and Philip Boshoff

Marriage Year 3: Meet Shaun and Samantha Brauteseth

Marriage Year 4: Meet Jade and Sean Poole

Marriage Year 4: Meet Emma and Willie Cocklin

Marriage Year 4: Meet Tessa and Ashley Tuttle

Marriage Year 5: Meet Jackie and Tim Barker

Marriage Year 5: Meet Lindsay and Nate Brown

Marriage Year 5: Meet Lily and Jonathan Dunn

Marriage Year 5: Meet Candice and Matt Fourie

Marriage Year 6: Meet Karen and Alex Powell

Marriage Year 6: Meet Colette and Andrew Tennison

Marriage Year 7: Meet Leanne and Hilton Bennett

Marriage Year 7: Meet Bradley and Vicky Jones

Marriage Year 8: Meet Steven and Kristin Heineman

Marriage Year 9: Meet Anthea and Philip Godsmark

Marriage Year 9: Meet Bettina and Kevin van Antwerpen

Marriage Year 9: Meet Matt and Kathy Allison

Marriage Year 10: Meet Lu-Shane and Marco Alexander

Marriage Year 10: Meet Richard and Wendy Sumner

Marriage Year 10: Meet Megan and Brenton Furniss

Marriage Year 13: Meet Nate and Andrea Milheim

Marriage Year 14: Meet Tim and Laura Tucker

Marriage Year 15: Meet Natasha and Dave Henning

Marriage Year 18: Meet Lara and Chris Lahr

Marriage Year 28: Meet Shelley and Deon Lombard [Parents of Jade Lombard Poole in Year 4 above]

Marriage Year 33: Meet Jo and Ollie Prentice

Marriage Year 45: Meet Costa and Lorraine Mitchell

A while back i put together a series called ‘How to Save your Marriage [before you need to]’ which a whole bunch of other married people contributed to and you can catch up on all of those helpful posts over here.