by Rebecca Rehm

Created on: July 12, 2009

Yes, I believe "happily ever after does exist" if you find the right person and realize from the beginning that marriage doesn't just automatically succeed on it's own, it requires a lot of hard work and dedication.

My husband and I met and married twenty five years ago. I have often wondered how he managed to stick it out this long, I mean let's face facts he didn't receive a dowry of gold instead he got a wife with a trunk full of emotional baggage, an alcoholic ex-husband and two little girls all wrapped up in a tidy bow.

We have suffered through the storms that accompany a drug addicted son, a daughter married too young to the wrong man and then the divorce that followed and another daughter having children too young and raising them alone but as a family we have navigated the many twists and turns presented to us by life. We have endured hardships, some by our own hands and some at the hands of others. We have rejoiced at the birth of our children and our grandchildren.

We have laughed and cried in each other's arms. We have survived and endured what for us is the best and the worst that the world has to offer and hopefully, God willing we have more lessons to come.

David has been a wonderful husband and father. He took over raising my daughters at the ages of two and four, their father had very little to do with them so the only dad they really knew was David. He is the one that guided them through their childhood and watched them grow into beautiful young women.

We also have a son and daughter together and though at times I worried about how this blended family would work we have managed to come through some tough times with our family intact. David has never shown any difference between the children all four belong to him.

Our grandchildren are a different kind of blessing we can love and spoil them at will and when the day comes to a close we send them home.

Our lives have been filled with many ups and downs, and I could not have asked for a better partner. During the hard times when it seems we are incapable of rational thought we are each other's voice of reason, solid ground in a pool of quick sand.

Having married after such a whirlwind courtship; just three weeks, there were those that swore we wouldn't make it but when God places the right one in your life you know it. There was no denying that it was meant to be. I for one would not trade a moment of our lives together.

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