#5   Marriage over 20 years

I have been married for 19 years and dating with my husband for one and half year, so I consider being together with my husband for more than 20 years.

One of our challenges in our marriage was being born and raised in different countries. My husband is from the USA and I am from Mexico. We don’t carry the same traditions or cultures. Since we don’t speak the same native language, miscommunication has created misunderstanding and conflict many times.  Another challenge at the beginning of our marriage was that since we both have significant differences in culture, family values and how to raise our children, many difficult situations arose in our marriage. The way my husband and I resolved these differences were by  respecting each others’ cultures, family values and traditions; even if we don’t agree with them some of this believes, we adjust to both cultures with caring and respect, we accept each others’ differences and moved on in our lives always finding the best for our marriage.   I guess one of our advices for a healthy marriage is to always respect each other.  After 20 years together,  we have been enriched with the mixture of cultures and enjoy the benefit of the two different worlds.

 Things that have helped us to be successful in our lives are mutual respect, commitment, a family-comes-first attitude, accepting each other for who we are and love.