Thoughts on marriage by a still pretty newly-wed

Let me preface today's blog entry by saying for some reason my contacts are refusing to settle, so I have a bit of double vision. If I have weirdo typos, I apologize. I can't see.
Erick and I celebrated our 6th anniversary yesterday. Yay! It's very sad to me that many couples who got married around the same time we did have already parted ways. I have never thought of considering the d-word in our 6 years, but there have been some very tough times that I believe has given us experience beyond our years. Why is marriage so hard?
Well, for starters, life is hard! I know my tendency when things around me start going wrong, I look for trouble everywhere. Does that make sense? Like in high school (Erick and I started dating when I was 16) when I would be bogged down with tests and papers and band, I would be absolutely certain Erick was going to break up with me. I would beg him for reassurance. Poor guy.
Problems change after high school, but they just get bigger. That's hard to deal with by yourself. But it's even harder to deal with problems with each other. Erick and I have gotten some help communicating with each other in the past couple of years. It's the best thing we have ever done. We now have a tool when something needs to be discussed between us. We have used it to settle issues from who should clean the toilet to why one of us is depressed. I'm by no means a psychologist, so don't take this as official advice, but dialoguing goes a little like this:

Person 1: I want to talk about ...blah blah blah. pause
Person 2: I hear you saying..blah blah blah (they don't give any advice or interpretations, just say what they heard) Is that right?
Person 1: No, I meant.... or Yes, that's all.
Person 2: That makes sense to me because......
How I think that must make you feel is.......

It's so simple, but means so much. You're validated and really heard. Usually you switch once the first person has finished.
It feels really silly when you first start, but then it's a more natural way of talking.

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
James 1:19

Again, I'm not an expert on marriage, I just know this has helped us. One of us needs to be reminded when to keep the mouth shut, the other needs to be reminded when to open it. I'll let you guess who is who. :) That's another thing that makes marriage hard--it's run by imperfect humans. Those imperfections tend to try to drive people apart. I believe you have to have some, uh, God Glue? to hold you together.

Marriage takes work. If you aren't moving forward, then you're moving backward. I am blessed to be with a man who is willing to do that work, and to have God on our side!