Here's what we learned after being married for three decades. Though every person and every marriage is unique, still we’d like to share with you some practical wisdom we gained, which we hope can help support other couples throughout their newlywed years and beyond.

1. We are best friends, first and foremost.

Everyday when the two of us pray for each other, we often say, “Lord, please bless my spouse–my best friend...” to remind ourselves that before anything else, we are BFFs. As besties, we are very emotionally connected, so we strive to spend time together, to show each other that we care, to be open and honest with both our positive and negative feelings, to help each other through tough times and to embark on new experiences together.

2. Love is a decision.

We learned that married love is not about feeling cheesy all the time. Romantic love is wonderful, amazing and important, BUT we realized that we cannot be attached to it because emotions can fluctuate and change the same way the wind can suddenly change course. So if our marriage is simply focused on romance and pleasing one another, what happens when my spouse hurts or disappoints me? Instead, we make it a point to wilfully choose to love each other every moment of everyday–with or without the romantic feeling. Married love is a decision, and we must decide to love our partner both in his/her best and in his/her worst.

3. We don’t agree on everything but we are on the same page when it comes to important things.

Being besties doesn’t mean we always agree on every little decision that we make. But, we are on the same page when it comes to important things, like religion, money, and how to raise our kids. We have the same values and outlook on life, which governs our biggest decisions. There's no battle for control in our marriage or family life. There is no sense of competition. We always know that we are on the same team and we got each other’s back. At the end of day, we are each other's number one cheerleader.

4. My spouse is ever changing and ever new.

As BFFs we avoid the trap of assuming we already know everything about each other. This prevents us from being bored and taking each other for granted. God is never finished with us and we’ll always be a work in progress. Knowing this, we strive to help each other uncover and appreciate whatever newness God is creating in us. Doing so helps us to continually bloom as persons, even in our old age, and this forever makes us an interesting, amazing, and beautiful person for our spouse.

5. Laughter is the best medicine for marriage.

A sense of humor in marriage is mandatory. It is one of the best ways to manage stress and cope with the difficulties and challenges of married life. Humor has always been a way of keeping us from taking life and ourselves too seriously, and showing us that there is always another perspective to be considered. Even before marriage, I would always find ways to tease Betty and make her laugh and giggle like a schoolgirl over nothing at all. Now, more than 30 years later, I’m still doing it–making me a professional stand-up comedian for my wife! And this has actually made our life together richer and happier.

6. We opened ourselves to individuation.

Many marriages are wary of any self-awareness or psychological processes. Somehow for us, we saw from the beginning that it would be an enormous advantage if both of us went through an individuation process. In Jungian psychology, individuation describes a process of self-realization, a development of one’s self-identity, and a discovery of one's life purpose. We both accepted this as a goal and a lifelong process in our individual lives. It is of course difficult and challenging, even painful, but we persevered and sought the help of therapists and other mental health professionals who, through the years, offered us guidance, encouragement, and support. The amazing thing about it is the more we went through the process, the deeper our love for each other grew. It taught us to be more loving, more understanding, more compassionate and forgiving, which definitely made all our efforts worthwhile.

7. We have common interests, but we also respect our differences.

We learned that if we want to spend our lifetime with each other, then we should have activities that we love doing together. We have a number of common interests but the best thing that happened to us was we discovered a common mission. After the birth of our children both of us became passionate about birth. We began to share a common desire to help expectant couples have a beautiful and positive journey as new parents. We love our teamwork as childbirth mentors and having this shared mission reinforced our friendship and bond of marriage.

That's not to say we always do everything together. In the same way that we maintain our “us” time, we also maintain each other's “me” time. We both learned to respect each other's interests that aren't our own. For example, I don’t disturb Betty when she goes out with her high school friends or if she goes to a self-care spa or beauty salon, and she doesn't complain when I go out with my former officemates or if I just want to stay home and play games online or to watch videos online. We give each other the space to do whatever it is that we love to do and compromise whenever possible. This way we are still able to enjoy our own hobbies and interests.

8. Always check and fill each other’s emotional love tank.

A love tank is the part of us that represents our emotional need for love. Gary Chapman, in his book The 5 Love Languages, explained to us the significance of regularly taking time out to communicate and check our spouse’s Emotional Love Tank. Gary also taught us how to recognize and practice the 5 Love Languages (i.e., words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time, and physical touch) and use these to fill each other’s love tank. This was a significant help in identifying the root cause of our conflicts and it enabled us to connect more and to grow closer with each other.

9. Acts of service goes a long way.

Even if my partner prefers another love language, doing acts of service is something very basic and is immensely beneficial for a healthy relationship. When it comes to performing acts of service, the habit of being sensitive to my partner and being attentive to the small things is very important. For example, Manny prepares my morning coffee and he knows how much sugar to add. He also knows how to give me the right massage after a tiring day. On the other hand, I know how to prepare all of Manny’s favorite dishes and the things he needs before he goes to work.

We also consider the things that our partner doesn’t enjoy doing, then we make the effort to do these tasks for our partner. Another is we utilize our strengths. This means, if I understand something that my partner doesn’t, I volunteer my services to assist him/her. We just make sure that we do this without having an “I-am-so-much-better-than-you” attitude.

10. Be part of a support community.

Being part of a support community is, without doubt, a major ingredient in making our marriage strong. The saying that “No man is an island” can also be said of marriages. It really takes a village to grow healthy marriages. By making time to connect with others we received fresh perspectives to our marriage and it reassured us that we are not alone in our marital challenges.

We have been a part of a church community even while we were still dating and we continued being part of it when we got married. Today we can say that we are extremely blessed to continually have the support of well-meaning friends and family who walked with us through the ups and downs of our married life. They have always given us encouragement to better manage our marital difficulties so we can experience a lasting and fulfilling marriage.

11. It takes three to get married.

So many couples try to do it all on their own, relying only on each other to complete them or to sustain them. We wouldn’t be here three decades later if that was our formula. The secret ingredient to the secret ingredient of our marriage is–we were three when we got married! We learned early on that in marriage, human love is not enough. It’s tough to love the same person all the days of your life! EGR (or “Extra Grace Required”) is necessary. This simply means, for us to love each other unconditionally, we need the constant presence of a love greater than our own. Our marriage still has challenges but our prayers are deeper and the rock we’re standing on, stronger. It takes three to make any marriage work—God must be the constant. His boundless capacity to get us through hard times is what has saved us.

12. For it to work you have to work it.

No marriage is perfect, no marital journey is smooth sailing. We can say that all marriages are like a garden. If we want it to flourish and to bloom, then we have to work at it. We cannot just sit back and wait for beautiful things to happen. Every gardener knows that you don’t just plant seeds, then leave them and hope that they will grow. That’s crazy! A garden requires time, attention and nurturing. So does marriage.

Look at what happened during the pandemic when there was a widespread interest in plants. People just kept buying plants and we saw countless homes everywhere covered with greens and flowers. But after the hype and excitement faded away, the plants faded away too. Now what we see are dry, insect-infested, unweeded gardens that are slowly dying–a warning for us that our marriage can go the same path if we neglect it. All marriages start with the thrill and excitement of our wedding day, but what is more important is what you do with your life together after that day. For marriages to work you have to work it. So work it, it’s worth it.

12 Important Lessons Learned from Our 30 Years of Marriage