My husband is an auditor/ CPA for a big four international accounting firm. I’ve never really talked about this on my blog, but it is a huge part of our life and really impacts a lot that we do! We try to view the last few years as a lot of people would view going to medical school; this is an investment in Devin’s future career, but sleep and time together is often very limited.
My husband often works until 2 AM on a regular basis. I’m not saying this to brag, but it is just reality.
Our first year we lived in Atlanta, Devin traveled over 60%. There was one year that he worked enough in other states that he had to file tax returns in 5 different states. When I’ve been in car wrecks and have had slipped discs and concussions, I’ve had to call people to come pick me up to take me to the ER. We’ve had months where we haven’t eaten dinner together except on the weekends. When I was in graduate school, we usually opted for him to travel during finals week so we didn’t have to worry about bothering each other when we both needed to work hard. It has had a lot of ups and downs, ebbs and flows, but after 4.5 years at Devin’s job and in Atlanta: I feel like we totally knew what we were expecting this year.
I’ve learned to immerse myself in hobbies, friendships, and self-care at this time of the year. I’ve learned that when he has been eating out every meal on the company’s tab all week that he wants a home cooked one. He’s learned to budget his time so we can have Sundays for us just together. He’s learned work boundaries. He’s learned that I want some nice food after cooking for one all week. We’ve made a lot of sacrifices. We’ve learned how to communicate. We’ve learned how to use our vacation time together to its fullest.
When we became married, I wanted to make sure we always had the opportunity to reach our highest potential. I feel like there is a lot of negativity and opinions on when people get married as college students in their early twenties. However, here we are 6 years later and I’m here to tell you that those stereotypes are just that. We’re happy, we’re debt free beyond my car and our mortgage, we’ve traveled, we both have graduate degrees, we have a beautiful home, we’ve worked, we’ve saved, we’ve laughed, we’ve cried, and we’ve reached a lot more together than we ever would have alone.
It takes time to get to this point, to realize what we have worked on and developed, and I’m happy to be looking at it from this side of the timeline. When Valentine’s Day approached this year, I smiled at what we have accomplished since our second date anniversary seven years ago.
I think that’s the best Valentine’s day present I can be offered.