Twenty-seven years ago, yesterday, my husband and I were married. And we lived happily ever after. The end.

Actually, not even the beginning was like that! First of all, we thought we would save some time and stress on our wedding day by doing some of our photographs right before the ceremony. People didn’t do them as a matter of course, like they do now. So we arranged to meet our photographer early and showed up at the temple…and it was raining. And not just a gentle mist. Torrential downpour would be more accurate. So, no photographs. We didn’t have a backup plan, so our photographer left and we were just going to figure out something later. (We were married in the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It’s a very simple, sacred ceremony and no photography is allowed inside the temple itself). Luckily, one of my husband’s friends or neighbors came out of the temple to take pictures right when we did and they offered their photographer’s services for at least a few pictures of us and our family. By then the rain had stopped and it was just a little muddy on the grass, so I only slightly ruined my shoes. But I was married to the man of my dreams and we were excited to have like three whole days together in Park City before we had to go back to school!

I woke up the morning after our wedding with a temperature. We would find out in a few days that I actually had mono, which is what every groom who has saved himself for marriage is hoping for. Instead of lots of romance, sunset walks and staring into each other’s eyes, there were midnight runs to the store for ibuprofen, and soup, and playing cards, and him trying to reassure me I had not totally ruined his life. Maybe the honeymoon. But not his life! 😊. And that was our first several weeks of marriage. I was sick. And I hated it. And I could do nothing about it. My mom had cooked for weeks for our second reception-Korean and Chinese food, and I couldn’t even eat. But my husband spent a lot of time serving me. I don’t think he needed that lesson. I definitely needed to learn how to accept being served. Some people say their first year of marriage is hard, some say it’s blissful, I think ours was educational. And a great preparation for what has followed. I’ve been thinking about what has made our marriage successful—notice I’m not saying perfect, or amazing, or Instagram-able! I’ve decided that every marriage is so different and there are different things each couple might need to DO to succeed, but I think there are definitely some DON’TS that can apply universally. And if your marriage is perfect and glorious and Instagram-able, then feel free to share with the rest of us! But hopefully, something in here will help somebody.

1. DON’T KEEP TRACK

Here’s something you need to remember whether you’re engaged, or it’s Day 1 or Day 10,000: Marriage is NOT a 50/50 proposition. You each need to give 100 percent. There isn’t and shouldn’t be a spread sheet or a ledger, mental or otherwise, where you are keeping score of who did what how many times. Or who works harder. Or who is more tired. Or who “deserves” whatever. There were years where I didn’t sleep. And I threw up for 9 solid months with my last two pregnancies. Yeah, it was miserable. And did I hate to hear the words “crew rest” come out of ANYONE’S mouth, let alone my husband’s? Boy, howdy! I wanted to punch him in the throat sometimes! I would think, “What about the ‘crew rest’ for the person driving your children around all day? On like two hours of sleep? Freaking spoiled pilots!” But as I write this, my husband is on his way to Paris the second time this week. Since Monday. And he’ll be back here in the States Saturday. I’m sorry-let me be clear-HE IS FLYING THE PLANE, NOT SLEEPING ON IT. So, now, HE’S tired. A lot. And I have things I deal with, too. But we have learned to just be grateful for what the other person does for each other and our family and not keep track. Because nothing lies that way but misery and resentment. Gratitude is much better. Trust me.

2. DON’T COMPARE

I really could just leave that visual there and not say anything. But if you’re not a visual learner, let’s break it down: Don’t compare your marriage to anyone else’s marriage. Not your parents’, sister’s, best friend’s, church leader’s, actual neighbor’s…..Here’s why: Nothing looks on the inside like it does on the outside. We all have stuff we are dealing with. We all compare our worst version of ourselves with the best version of someone else. Case in point, we look like a fantastic family. We are happily married, we have a beautiful house, no obvious problems, four amazing kids, three beautiful granddaughters, we just went on vacation to Hawaii…who wouldn’t want my life, right? But just this week, every one of my kids has had some rough moments. I have talked someone off the ledge almost every day. I have been literally stumbling around after eye surgery. My husband is exhausted and has no idea what continent or time zone he’s in, plus he’s trying to tend to his flock as the bishop of our ward. My dad is slowly dying of dementia while my mother is driving me crazy with her denial of his illness. And I’ve pretty much had a headache every minute I’m awake. I’m not complaining. I know we’re blessed and all of our “problems” are totally bearable. I’m just saying, if you didn’t know any of that, you’d think my life was way easier than yours. And maybe it still is. But it’s so easy to see a picture on Instagram and think everyone has it made.

3. DON’T FORGET WHY YOU MARRIED HIM

I remember being a brand new bride, and overhearing some girls who had been married just a few years talking about their husbands. I could not believe the bashing that was going on. It wasn’t really the content that mattered, because I think we all need to check with someone else that it’s normal for a man to put his socks ON the hamper, and not IN the hamper. It was the way they were talking. Vitriol is not an exaggeration. Part of me wanted to ask if these were the same guys they were dying to marry a couple of years ago, and if so, what had made them so horrible?! I think it is just an accepted, although unfortunate, cultural custom, that we can complain about our spouse in public. How much better to praise them in public! And I don’t mean cheesy Instagram posts, but sincere compliments in front of other people that let them know we still think they are the bees’ knees! Tell other people why they are great. If you are out of the habit, do something one of my therapists suggested. Instead of a regular gratitude journal, every day for a week, write down three specific things about your spouse that you appreciate. When I did this, I found myself watching him with a new perspective through the week. Rather than finding reasons to be irritated, I was looking for, and finding all the reasons I loved him.

4. DON’T PUT ANYONE ELSE FIRST

This is the Salt Lake City Temple. When we were married there, we weren’t just married. We were sealed. We believe in our faith that when we are married in a temple, with the right authority, that our marriage is a covenant that can be sealed by the Spirit and will last not for just this life, but after death and for eternity. When I was about 19, I took a Marriage Prep class at college. My mom told me that marriage had nothing to do with love-it was all about commitment. She said, “Sometimes, I don’t want to be sealed to your father for the next five minutes, let alone for eternity! You can’t go just by feelings. You made a commitment to each other.” They celebrated their 55th anniversary yesterday. And NOW I totally understand her philosophy! At the time, I thought that was so unromantic and ridiculous. Of course, I would ALWAYS feel in love with my husband and want to be with him forever! Feelings DO come and go depending on how tired, hungry, overworked, stressed, underpaid and overwhelmed we are! But the covenant we made is always there. We put each other first. That means, except for God, everything else, including the kids, is less important than our marriage. This includes work, Netflix, video games, Pinterest, each other’s parents, sports, and even Target. Sometimes, it means my husband drops everything so I can take care of my struggling parents. Sometimes, it means I don’t buy something big without talking to him. (Because I’ve never done that!) Sometimes, it means we go out on a date even when we haven’t seen a lot of our kids that week. Nowadays, it means putting down our phones, and letting go of our worries for the rest of the world and just trying to connect for a minute at the end of the day. Are we perfect at this? No. We still screw it up sometimes. But we really try, and that’s important. And let me also stress, for us, it’s super important to put God first. When we do that, we are better at doing everything else.

5. DON’T STOP TENDING YOUR GARDEN

Marriage is work. If you’ve seen Stranger Things 3, that’s the real Neverending Story. (What I mean, is that marriage is work, not ST3.) Nobody wants to hear that. That’s why every story ends with happily ever after. Not with, “and then she woke up with mono the next day, and then they found out they were pregnant on Christmas Eve, but the pregnancy almost killed her and she had 2/3 of another baby before finally finishing college and then they went to pilot training where he rocked it but then got a concussion halfway through A-10 school so he couldn’t fly for 9 months and had to do the whole course again and they’ve spent half their marriage apart and then she has a chronic mental illness and then they had secondary infertility but then miraculously they had two more kids and two dogs and a hedgehog and she’s moved a few of the 20 times without him but they are still in love and making it work happily ever after!” Because who wants to read that book?! That’s NOT a Disney movie. It is, however, so much more rewarding. But we have a lot of singers around here, and sometimes people randomly burst into song, so weirdly, I do feel like I’ve wandered into a Disney movie. (Plus, the hedgehog. Now, if HE sang…he is nocturnal, so who knows what really goes on in my house.) Anyway, back to the garden. That’s NOT an actual picture of me up there tending my garden. I did do some yard work a few days ago, because oddly, my eyesight is so much better outdoors right now. But it wasn’t me, in a lacy dress, daintily clipping blossoms Downton Abbey style. It was more like me, sweating my guts out, pulling out dead stalks and weeds and throwing out ENTIRE pots of flowers that had died while we were on vacation. And then going to Lowe’s and like a cheater, buying new pots of flowers to put in the old pots, because I wanted to spruce up my garden. I don’t have some wise allegory for marriage there. Just that sometimes, you have to be willing to get rid of the dead stuff and keep it fresh. Put in some effort, even if it was mostly done by proxy, by Lowe’s, to keep things going. Whatever works for you! Sometimes I have a lot of time to do something really thoughtful for my husband. And sometimes, I just tuck a note or treat in his suitcase before he leaves on a trip. Sometimes, I can’t even make that happen, because he’s leaving at 4 in the morning-and I love him, but I’m not getting up at 3:30 to hide something in there while he’s in the shower. So I just send him a text. Or a joke. Or occasionally I can hop in a flight with him. A few weeks ago, he had a layover here in our hometown on his way somewhere else, so I went to the airport to surprise him for dinner.

This tending thing goes both ways. During one of our first weeks of dating, I got home from work and class and found a loaf of banana bread and a note that said, “I was thinking about you today, so I made some banana bread for my favorite fruit!” I still have the note. He made me laugh AND he fed me! I knew back then he was a keeper. He does a lot of the laundry nowadays. And I love it when I grab a pair of socks and find a note tucked in there that says I’m beautiful or that he appreciates the way I serve others or something. I have a whole little jar of “sock notes” that I’ve collected this past year.

And can I just suggest something that takes almost NO effort and costs nothing but makes a huge difference? Saying “please” and “thank you”! Those two little phrases are almost disappearing from our culture. But I’ve noticed that they also tend to disappear in marriages. If I can say it to a waiter, or the guy at the drive through, I can say it to the man who provides for me, comforts me, protects me, and is bringing me a bowl of ice cream.

So that’s my two cents on marriage. Or 5 Don’ts. I hope there is something real and practical and hopeful and helpful for you. That’s what I have found in our “happily ever after”-that two imperfect people who really want the best for each other and are willing to work at it can create a life that is not just happy-it can be hard and crazy and sad and busy and exhilarating and frustrating and funny and amazing. And successful! And, hopefully, forever.