Guest Post Tuesday: To Have & To Hold with Amberly

Hello friends! I'm excited that Kaeley is letting me hang out on the blog today!! My name is Amberly, and I blog over at Life with Amberly & Joe! My blog is all about my marriage, the fun adventures my husband and I have together, and the lessons I'm learning from being married and from my studies as I work toward a degree in Family Studies. We have been married for just over two years now and our love story is a fun one! I've recently started telling the whole story in more detail through posts on the blog every few weeks.

It might sound a little cliche, but being a wife is one of my favorite things in the entire world! I love spending time with my husband, and coming up with unique date night ideas. And while I love married life, it's not always the easiest thing in the world. We like to joke around about all of the random, funny moments from our life together, but we're also very aware that marriage takes hard work and is a constant process of growth and learning.

Ways I'm Working to Improve My Marriage

1- Marriage & Relationship Goals - At the beginning of the year, I decided that instead of setting a few year long resolutions, I was going to set new goals every month and work on them little by little. It has been really great to set goals for my marriage every month. When I first started, I thought I was going to have a hard time coming up with something new to work on month after month, but it's actually been really easy. With each goal I set and work on, I become aware of other things that need some work. And now that other wives have been linking up their goals on my blog weekly, I get even more great ideas! I'm pretty sure I'll be setting monthly marriage goals every month for the rest of my life at this rate.

2 - Becoming Puppy Parents - I've heard that children will challenge your marriage, but I never thought that getting a pet would have the same effect, boy was I wrong! At the beginning of this summer, we got a puppy, and it has definitely been an eye opener and taught us a lot about our marriage and how we handle our responsibilities. We always call our puppy our child because he really is. When my friends tell us a story about their kid, I can usually match it with a similar one about Howie. He's the sweetest, most adorable, loving dog, but he is also a lot of trouble. We have had quite a few marriage strengthening moments since we got him. I don't know how else to describe it, but I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about!

3 - Budgeting and Managing Our Money - What do most couples fight about? I'm willing to bet that it's money. I'm sure that's one of the most avoided topics in most marriages. In our relationship, money is one of the most talked about topics! My husband is a huge Dave Ramsey fan and he loves anything to do with investments and saving money. He is often invited to post on my blog for my Marriage & Money series because he has so many great things to say on the subject. We are really proud of the fact that we accomplished a goal and paid off our debt within a year and a half of marriage, and we recently started using the envelope system to help keep our spending in control so that we can put more money aside for our first house. We don't always agree when it comes to our budget or what we should spend our money on, and I'm more of a spender than a saver, but it's something I'm working on to make my husband happy and our marriage strong!

Marriage isn't always easy, there are a lot of ups and downs and you have to be constantly working on it. But being married to someone you love is one of the greatest things in the world! I LOVE coming home to my husband after a long, hard day knowing that he loves me no matter what. If you aren't married already, I would highly suggest it! ;) 

Amberly

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Wow....isn't she an inspiration? Marriage is not easy, but it is definitely worth the work it takes to build and maintain a strong relationship.

If you are interested in participating in Guest Post Tuesday, please send me an email at 

kaeley *dot* a *dot* mull *at* gmail *dot* com

 {or click the envelope icon in the sidebar}.  Please include the URL for your blog, and what you are interested in sharing about.  I will get back to you with a choice of dates.