This week’s We Married Young happily features Shea of myinnervoiceyelling.blogspot.com, her Husband, and their two beautiful little girls! I always enjoy reading her family fun filled entries, and I know you will too when you hop on over to check out her blog! Thanks so much Shea for telling us about your lovely family!
1. First of all, tell us how long have you been married and how old were the two of you when you tied the knot?
Jordan and I got married in 2006 when we were both 19 years old! Which seems so young now since his little sister is 18!
2. Tell us a little backstory! How did you and your Husband meet and how long did you date before getting married?
We met in high school in 2004. I was a senior and he was a junior and I commented on his Lollapalooza shirt and I mentioned how much I wanted to go but never did. Little did I know he had a crush on me for a long time. He called me his Rushmore (if anyone has seen the movie, you know how much Max loves the school). We dated for 2 years and in October 2005, he left for Marine Corps boot camp for 3 months which was really hard. But the first of many months apart. When he finally got stationed at Camp Lejeune after boot camp and SOI (school of infantry training), he asked me to marry him. It wasn’t anything fancy. Just over the phone and so I started planning our wedding but we couldn’t save up the money so my best friends Sybil, Jamie and I and Jamie’s boyfriend Jason made the 8 hour drive from Kentucky to North Carolina and we got married at the court house!
3. Some people might say you got married a little too young (it’s been said to Nate & I!)- did you receive any negative feedback on your choice to get married at a younger age or were you surrounded by support?
There was definitely some negative feedback. Our moms were both upset that they couldn’t be there but Jordan’s dad is pretty much against marriage all together so he wasn’t too keen on it but now I’m just as much a part of their family as my own, even more so in some cases.
4. This is the time in our lives when most of us twenty-somethings are truly finding ourselves and our purpose, through education or by other means. Have you found it harder or easier to work toward your goals as a married woman?
It was harder for me to continue going to school. I was in my second year at college then I got married and move to North Carolina and I had looked into going to school down there but with Jordan’s schedule and knowing he had to deploy to Iraq in January 2007, and I was going to move home, I decided to put school on hold and get a job instead. Now that he’s out of the Marines and we’ve moved home, I have started school again and should have my associate’s degree very soon then I’ll be continuing onto a local university (hopefully) to get my bachelor’s and become a history teacher.
5. Life is fast paced when you’re trying to accomplish so many things and maintain a vibrant and fulfilling marriage at the same time! Do you have any tips on staying connected to your significant other with so much going on?
Soak up every minute you can. To me, the best times I have had have been just watching tv on the couch together or going out to eat. You don’t always have to have these grand, sweeping gestures to show your husband you love him, sometimes a back rub or a splurge on a video game are just as sweet (well to my husband anyways!)
6. What are your favorite things to do as a married couple? Have those things changed a lot or stayed the same since the dating days?
Things have pretty much stayed the same. Except now of course I have to pay bills and I don’t have anyone else to depend on keeping the house clean. But as a couple, we still joke and laugh and have tickle fights till I almost pee on myself. Hahaha! Some of our favorite things to do are just watch tv and relax. He is really trying to get me into video games but I just can’t seem to get into it. So we’re turning to his other love, camping! Something which I’m much more willing to participate in. And we of course love going out to eat, well rather ordering in from a restaurant because with 2 kids, it can get a little hectic inside a restaurant.
7. Did getting married change anything (relationships, lifestyle, etc.) in your life that surprised you at all?
It made me a lot more independent. I had to move 8 hours from everyone I knew to a place where I didn’t know very many people and my husband was at work all day. So I learned to rely on myself and my husband for everything. I am glad I’m independent but it’s a little more difficult now since we’ve moved home. I would much rather be farther away from family.
8. Are the first few years really the hardest?
Our first year of marriage was especially hard. We were only together for 6 months of them. We got married in June, I moved to NC in July, he had 2 weeks of training in August, he was gone a month in October and in January he deployed to Iraq for 7 months. Then when he got home from that in August 2007, he had a turn around and left for Iraq again in April 2008. We did fight quite a bit but I think that was more because of his job rather than us being a newlywed couple. Because now, after 5 years of marriage, we still have a fight from time to time but we’ve learned to let the little things go.
9. And I know you are a mama to two adorable little girls! In what ways has having babies changed and shaped your marriage?
Again, it made me more independent. I had my first daughter, Rosslyn, when Jordan was deployed for the second time. And her birth story was a whole separate ordeal!! Long story short: I was having contractions but wasn’t dilating so the hospital sent me home and she was born at home. I know Jordan wasn’t there but as fate would have it, he called me in the ambulance as we were going to the hospital. But with Aurelia, who was born November 2010, he was there so that was better. But after having kids, you have to learn to work your lives around them more. There are some days where I want nothing more than to go shopping and having two small kids makes it difficult. And ties when we want to go see a movie are hard too, because we need to find a sitter but I love my girls and I know he does too and they have put a strain on our marriage a bit but it hasn’t completely broken it down. It’s not so much that having kids put a strain on our marriage it’s that I
know it’s time to grow up and we can’t do what we want like before we had them.
10. Lastly, if you could give one piece of advice to a young couple who were thinking of getting hitched, what would it be?
Know that once you get married, you’re your own family. And you can’t live to please anyone else except your husband. He should be the only one who matters to you and vice versa. I know it sounds old fashioned but I would rather live with that idea than have our families butting in at every single turn.
